Eight Days
by LynnAgate
Summary: White leaves Max and Alec to die in an underground bunker. Will they make it out alive? M. Disclaimer: Dark Angel is owned by James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee. For entertainment purposes only.
1. Day One: It Was A Trap

Max lifted her head and winced, bringing her hand up to the throbbing pain that had woken her to begin with. She groaned.

"Finally, you're awake," she heard. Alec sat on the rack next to hers, staring at her intently. He seemed calm, but as she sat up, she saw his usually-perfect skin had a couple of abrasions on it, some on his face, and a slight black eye.

"What happened?" she asked, a little too dizzy to look around.

"You don't remember?"

She couldn't remember. Was it White? She saw a picture of him in her mind and gritted her teeth. That didn't help her headache.

"We were crawling around in the sewers on a weeknight looking for some lost transgenic," he said, rubbing his head.

Okay, she remembered that. She'd gotten a tip from one of Logan's contacts that there was a transgenic, a child, out hiding in the sewers; a child who needed help.

She had been at Crash when Logan called to inform her of his contact's information. At Crash with Original Cindy, Sketchy and Alec, relaxing after work. When she said she had to go, Alec had tagged along, out of some misguided sense of chivalry, Max had deduced – and had said as much. She'd lived on her own for ten years before the others were freed, and she'd survived that long. But Alec had insisted, so they had both gone.

Not far from Terminal City, they had descended into the sewers and discovered the quivering child. But when she'd gotten closer to the child, he turned to reveal himself as one of the familiar's offspring. It had been a trap.

Max had looked back at Alec, and then a darkness had come over her. She didn't remember anything else.

"When we found him, White was right behind him with some tranq darts – which he used on me after he knocked you out," Alec told her.

"Why didn't he just kill us?"

Alec shifted in his seat and eventually stood. "That's why we're here," he said, arms outstretched as if to sarcastically suggest '_This place is paradise' _and '_What more could we want?'_

Max finally looked around. They seemed to be in an iron cage, underground by the mildewy smell of it and sense of coldness. Were they even in Seattle anymore? The lights flickered.

"Oh yeah, and the power is only gonna last another two days, maybe." Alec paced the cell.

"This is not happening," Max said. _It's a dream, _she told herself; _no, a nightmare._ She recognized she was in denial at some subconscious level, but it just felt like this wasn't supposed to be happening. When they broke out so many years ago, they were supposed to assimilate to the world and no one would ever suspect they were different, and they would all make up something clever about their barcodes. This wasn't part of the plan.

"How long have I been out?" she asked.

"About a day."

"How long have we been down here?"

"I think about a day. White knocked you out then sedated you for a little while and went to town on my face. He tranq'ed me with three darts. I can only imagine he tranq'ed you, too."

"That explains the excruciating migraine," she said, feeling her neck for puncture holes. She felt two sore spots. "Bastards."

"When I woke up, that smug asshole had us welded in here. No water, no food. Nothing."

Max, panic-stricken, looked around and noticed some disturbed dirt areas near where she assumed was the front of the cage.

"Apparently, the bars go a couple of feet down before we see they are welded to an iron-bar floor."

_Oh, this is bad. This is really bad._

"Are we gonna die down here?" Max asked.

Alec was quiet. She didn't like that.

"Eventually."

XOXOXOX

The two transgenics had sat in silence for a couple of hours, avoiding one another's gaze.

_I can't believe this. I followed a solid tip, doing the right thing by trying to help a kid, and now I'm stuck underground in an impenetrable iron cage with Alec, and we're gonna die down here and no one would even know we needed rescuing. We're just going to vanish. _

Max thought about Original Cindy, sitting at home, worried sick about where Max was since she hadn't come home the previous night. She would be worried, right? She would know what to do – she would call Logan and they would find her. Right?

Except this wasn't the first time Max hadn't come home. It wasn't the firs time she'd gone on a mission and didn't check in for days. OC probably wouldn't' call Logan for a few days, and by then, they'd probably be out of air.

Unless she could find a way out. Maybe Alec hadn't checked completely.

Max stood up from the cot and headed to the opposite side of the cage, across from where Alec had dug before. She looked over her shoulder to him.

Somehow, this place had some power – the lights. Maybe she could find an imperfection in the welding, something weak enough that their combined strength could break it the rest of the way and they could be free and escape this bunker, go home and have a couple of beers with their friends and force this into a distant memory.

"What are you doing?" asked Alec, breaking the silence. Max moved with purpose.

"Help me dig," she ordered. She squatted down and began scraping at the dirt, frantic with determination.

"Max, it's no use," he said a little more harshly than he intended.

"Why? You're so perfect you don't make mistakes? You don't know, Alec, there could be some imperfections in the craftsmanship. We could be able to get out." Max had already been digging the whole lecture.

Alec watched her, surprised once again by her stubbornness. Though he knew it was futile, he sauntered over to her side, knelt down and began digging.

After hours of digging, they were both sweaty and dirty and had appeared to have gotten nowhere. Max wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and sat back against he bars to survey their work.

They managed to dig up about one-third of the floor, but had found no imperfections, no trap doors, and no spots wide enough for either of them to slip through.

"I can't believe I'm gonna die down here," she said, tears forming in her eyes.

Alec said nothing but thought back to his years at Manticore. _Emotion is the enemy. The objective is to complete your mission, soldier. _He could hear Lydecker in his head. He wracked his brain, trying to remember.

Psy-Ops had been hell. After Ben was discovered in the woods, neck broken, Manticore had done a thorough reexamination of his genetics and, though they had determined Ben's DNA had mutated strands and Alec's did not, they still went ahead with the torture, break-down of every corner of his mind, the reinstatement of the Manticore decree.

Alec had been too strong for them. Maybe his own DNA had prevented them, somehow, from reinstating the blank slate, follows-orders soldier he had once been. It was possible – but he knew he had fooled them. Surrendered himself physically to their torture, tests, every activity they wanted; kept up with the _Sir, yes, sirs_ and blind order-following for six months.

In that time, they had tried to burn 452, Max, into his head as a traitor, a poison to Manticore and everything for which it stood. Her picture had seared into his brain, but he saw her as the one thing which offered him hope. If he could memorize everything about her, maybe he could understand how to do what she had done – escape. He waited patiently for his opportunity, like a caged Lion waiting for the perfect time to expose his enemy's weakness and attack.

Then fate, or someone or something, had handed him that golden opportunity the day she had been shot. The facility was abuzz with hushed chatter that they had caught her – the traitor.

She had actually flat-lined, but a former X5 soldier – the leader of 452's unit, had killed himself to provide a heart so 452 would live. To Alec, the whole thing had seemed foolish. Why would he kill himself to save her? Manticore was on the cutting and experimental edge of scientific advances and discovery and would be able to bring them both back to life without issue.

Then again, some of those advances had occurred just in the past five to fifteen years. Maybe they didn't know the extent to which Manticore took its own God complex. They hadn't exactly been around, nor had they seen the underground happenings that helped cauterize Manticore's mistakes. Either way, she'd live.

Prior to her weeks of recovery, Alec had done so well at being the perfect soldier; they had promoted him and given him charge of the best unit. Whatever threat he had posed as a shared recipient of 493's DNA, they felt they had eradicated it from him, psychologically and physically.

He was in a position of dominance and that came with a few perks, such as pairing his unit with breeding partners. Renfro had even come to him to assign him to the traitor – once she recovered. He had hidden his intentions well.

When he stepped into her cell the first day, he knew she had already cooked up a plan – she was a soldier after all, and a soldier in enemy territory would case the place for exit routes.

He had wanted to tell her he'd go with her, that this was something they could work on together, but what assurances did he have she wouldn't rat him out for a better deal?

Truthfully, he didn't know her character at all, not really, only that they had something in common: the desire for freedom. He knew exactly what to say to her to make her run the other direction – want out that much more – and the (possibly) worse part was that Manticore _had_ ordered him to breed with her.

What he didn't expect was how attractive she'd be in person. Her childhood visage did little to forewarn him of her beauty. Even her picture by the sketch artist did her little justice. In real life, in the flesh, she swept long, straight hair, soft black, over her shoulder; of course her plump pout was in full effect – her younger self carried this, too; her big chocolaty eyes made his mouth dry; and her petite frame aroused in him the mental image of her holding it up against him. He was instantly attracted. _Not part of the plan¸_ he had thought, _but maybe it could be._

Now here they were, in an underground dirt bunker surrounded by iron bars, waiting to die, and he couldn't muster the courage to tell her the truth.

"I'm sorry, Max," he said, seeing dust form on the tracks of her tears. All he wanted to do was go back in time so he would never make her cry; get them out of this hole. But he couldn't remember how.

"It's not your fault, Alec." Max moved to sit next to him on the cot.

Alec felt the lump in his throat grow. _I'm not going to die a liar,_ he scolded himself. He cleared his throat. "Yeah, it is."

Max looked to him, innocent brown eyes melting him.

"I engineered this scenario almost ten years ago."


	2. Day Two: By Design

"Figures," she said, getting angrier each second, rising and pacing the cell. Alec stayed seated, tight-lipped. "So we're in an iron cage. We're gonna die in here and you're telling me this whole thing was something you dreamed up in your twisted, cruel mind. You built it." It almost sounded like a question, but he knew what she was after.

"Don't think the irony's lost on me." He didn't look at her.

"Why did you do it?"

"Not like I had a choice, Max. I was maybe twelve years old. I had mission parameters, things I had to include in my design: light and air control, accessibility. I was to create a place for prisoners of war – a place that would break them. A place so void of everything a prisoner might want that they would say or do anything at the thought of freedom."

"Oh, so you built their own personal Manticore." Max folded her arms. She paused, eyes drifting toward the ceiling in some wasted attempt. "What does that mean? What's going to happen? Lay it out for me, _soldier_." Her voice was so heavy with emphasis that he couldn't help think she would find a way to draw blood using only her words.

Alec shifted, looking up into her angry eyes. Hateful, even. She may as well have said _I hate your guts_. "As you can see, there is no natural light. Kinda like in casinos. Since we were both sedated, we have no timeframe for how long we've really been in here and as time goes on, we won't be able to tell what time of day it is. For most people, a couple of days in that type of environment will be disorienting and they will, on their own, end up sleep-deprived and dehydrated."

"Then how do you know it's been about a day?"

Alec gave a strange look before revealing, "Considering the amount of beer I drank at Crash, it would have taken only a few hours to work through my system."

Max nodded. "Okay, then what?"

"The lights will cut out, leaving us in the dark. For you and me that won't really be a problem though – enhanced vision. It was meant to disorient an ordinary, raise the paranoia factor."

The lights flickered again as if Alec mentioning them had jostled them toward the ultimate goal of dying out.

Max scoffed. She could hardly believe her ears. Her blood was pumping, sending bursts of angry fire up her body. It must have appeared in her eyes, because he swallowed hard before he continued.

"There will be a timed burst of bright lights mixed with heaving pounding sounds."

"How long will that last?"

"I don't know, it's random. I had engineered it to create a random sequence so that when asked, the guards could honestly disavow any knowledge of how much longer it would last."

"You released them from liability?" For some reason, Max found this particularly malicious, and her face contorted into one of surprising sympathy for the hypothetical prisoner. "You let them believe they weren't responsible for being a part of what Manticore was doing? How could you do that?" Max cut into him with her icy stare. Alec looked away.

"My design still offered the basic necessities, Max. It involved human contact – guards, people who dropped off water and food – just enough to survive. We're not gonna get that, Max. White left us in here. He _left us_ in here to die. This was not intended to be a death-chamber."

Max finally sat down on her cot and looked to Alec. He sighed heavily. _I never wanted this_, he thought.

Finally, he continued. "Either during or shortly after the light and sound show, they'll start pumping in hot air, then cold air – again, at random. There's a chemical compound in it that absorbs into the blood and will short-cut the brain's normal functions."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning you might start to hallucinate, auditory and visual. I did not build extraneous sounds or images into the program, so anything else you see and hear besides me and whatever's in here, it'll all be in your mind."

The few lights flickered again, Alec and Max looked at one another, each memorizing the last look they'd see with full light before the lights died out. Max, for the first time since he'd known her, looked scared. Her deep, coffee colored eyes were big with surprise. _No, not yet, _they both thought independently. Alec's hazel eyes portrayed an apologetic stare. There was no way he could ever make up for what was about to happen. She would hold it against him forever. _If we make it out of here, I'll be lucky if she ever talks to me again_.

The bright white of the filament surged and died out like a slow supernova. They were in darkness now. Each transgenic inadvertently enhanced their vision, sharpening and focusing what they were seeing. Everything was duller than it had just been. The lightless room was barely in focus. They couldn't really see anything beyond shapes. If they got close enough, they would be able to see one another's facial expressions, but for now they were shapes and objects in a room.

"Did you at any point ever think that maybe you shouldn't have followed these orders?" Max judged.

Alec stood up and stormed toward her. He stood close to her and stared into Max's darkened eyes. "Did you think it was all tea and crumpets, and 'thank-you-have-a-good-day' and 'oh, don't worry about those 09ers, they're of no use to us now and we can just go on with our lives and training like they never jumped the fence'? Did you?"

Max looked away. She hadn't really thought about all that. She had thought only about her own life and how to survive outside. But why was what happened to everyone she left behind in '09 suddenly her responsibility? And hadn't she come back and freed them all? Except, did they want to be free? Did they even have the desire to know what the outside world was about?

She wished he wouldn't, because he had made his point, but he continued anyway. "No, Max, they sent us all to Psy-Ops, and left those of us who were twinned in there for six months, turning us inside out mentally, physically, you name it, they did it. They altered what they thought had been a perfect combination of DNA to effectively breed out the inkling, the need for freedom, the questions; they increased security around the fences, which no longer looked like the ones you and your _siblings_ used to escape.

"For at least five years after your escape, they attempted to live-adjust people's DNA. Zack's twin was prodded, sliced, pulled, stabbed, shocked and experimented on until he died from the overload. Did you hear fragments of his screams out there in the real world, Max, while you were busy surviving, boiling your pots of water for baths, running around hiding from Lydecker? Did you hear their insides being ripped apart while you were delivering someone's package? Did you hear their minds being subverted and hear the electricity as they attempted to shock everyone out of the impulse while you were secretly meeting up with Logan for his top-secret Eyes Only missions? Did you smell the burning skin of those who didn't make it while you drank pre-pulse wine, candlelit during a brownout?"

He was really laying into her. He had held onto this so long he wasn't sure when it would stop and wasn't able to stop himself from continuing. He hated the look she had on her face, but it was dark and the words kept coming, as if they had taken on a mind of their own and felt that only in utter darkness would they be able to infuse her with the terror he had experienced.

"Our healing properties healed our scars, Max, but not our memories. Even Psy-Ops couldn't erase the things they did to all of us in the name of science, in the name of their playing God, in the name of what you and your brothers and your sisters left in your wake. You probably didn't even realize that they stopped the experiments of the twelve of you who escaped. Stopped, Max. They murdered the future embryos of your unit."

Alec paused, staring into her with a shrewd sharpness that cut into her like a barbed and poisoned quill, digging deeper and unable to be yanked out without damage. "But I was lucky, and more than that, I was smart."

Alec walked to the other side of the cell and sat on the mound of dirt. Max's eyes had started to tear up. She turned so he wouldn't see, even though she didn't think he could from that far away and in the black shadows. She didn't want him to see the pity she felt for all of those left behind, the empathy at knowing what it felt like to want to be free, even if it meant making an undeniably outlandish sacrifice by going out into the world without someone to support you – the drive to succeed on your own. She didn't want him to see that she didn't regret it. She didn't want him to see that his words had scraped against her heart. Worst of all, maybe she tried to turn away from herself, the person he thought she was. But she couldn't.

She gathered herself and made sure even the slightest chance of a wobbly voice would not come out as she said, "What's going to happen?"

Alec, watching the way her back moved irregular to the normal human breathing pattern, knew he had brought her to tears. He hadn't meant to. It was displaced – it wasn't her fault. Hell, without her, no one would be out here. But he couldn't bring himself to apologize. And now she was asking about what kind of fucked up mind would make this torture chamber, and what type of fucked up things were about to happen. He sighed, realizing exactly how she must feel about him. To her, he was heartless and merciless; he was a machine, a soldier, a killer. Because to her, if you handed the gangster the gun, you were just as culpable. To her, he didn't have the capacity to love. It hurt.

"Without water and food and the right air, we'll die. Because we're us, we'll last longer than a human, but not that much longer."

He hated admitting this whole thing, that there was a darkness to him she hadn't known. He had never meant to show her or let on that he was different before her escape. He hadn't known any better.

He heard a couple of sobs and closed his eyes in shame.


	3. Day Three: The Bargain

Neither of them slept. They lay on their flat cots, paced the cell, leaned against the bars, laid back down on the cots. They even closed their eyes, pretending. Hunger wasn't an issue, yet. But she was getting thirsty. She regretted having helped the dehydration with beer – was it two days ago?

Still, they did not sleep.

She was tired of lying down. She was not built for hours upon hours of inaction. She would have given anything for something else to do. She'd even considered trying to muster the courage to talk to Alec, but he still hadn't looked at her – at least that she could tell in the darkness. She had climbed the hard bars a couple of times, partly to see if there were any breaks in the metal, and partly for exercise. It was useless, though. Exercise would dehydrate her faster. She couldn't think of a way out. She couldn't invent a way out.

Alec lay with his back to her, feigning sleep. She knew he wasn't dozing. If he was, his breathing would change, but he kept inhaling and exhaling steadily.

Max had felt the urge to pee. For hours, she felt the pressure building on her bladder. There was no facility, no toilet, nothing in this room. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. She had to break the silence, even if it was just to tell him not to turn around.

"Alec, if you're awake," she began, even though she knew he was, "don't turn around please. I have to use the restroom."

Alec mustered "M'kay."

Max dug a hole the farthest from their cots she could figure and fingered the waist of her pants. _Am I really going to do this?_ She thought. _Undress in front of Alec? _She may have thought about it before – a fleeting thought. She wouldn't have given Manticore the satisfaction of knowing they had paired her right when Alec walked into her cell that day.

_I guess I have no choice_, she thought_._ Max pulled her clothing down and squatted over the hole. As the liquid drained, she felt relief, but it was quickly thrown back into context by her surroundings. What more than a free bladder could she feel relieved by? She was still going to be stuck here for the rest of her genetically-engineered life, which itself wouldn't be much longer. She felt sure of that, and desperate about it.

Pulling her pants up and kicking the dirt into the hole, she was struck by the idea that her remaining time on this earth, or in this earth as it were, was almost half over if what Alec said was right.

She'd done seven days before – in the cell at Manticore after her heart replacement. She had been hungry, thirsty, her muscles ached from the close quarters, and her eyes ached from trying too hard to see through the darkness. Even if she did see anything, there wasn't anyone to keep her company. She had steeled herself against the loneliness by reminding herself constantly that she wasn't going to die in there – not as a fucking number. She would always remember her name. The name her unit had given her. Max wasn't sure how many more days she could do, but she had done seven days before. Before re-indoctrination.

She shuddered at the thought. She had spent a month having most of what Alec had said about Psy-Ops done to her, repeatedly, without stop for several days at a time. Why did he think it would be any different after her recapture? _Ass,_ she thought, walking to her cot and sitting down.

She had been in the infirmary, just starting to get her wits about her, the brain stem cells coursing through her veins, repairing her with ridiculous speed while she began planning her eventual escape, when Renfro had appeared with a couple of orderlies and a doctor, all followed by two guards. She hadn't said a thing, only nodded in 452's direction, and the orderlies had needled her with a deep sedative, laced with a pretty strong muscle relaxant. They had carried her into that room. The one with the chair.

She had been lax in the chair for the first day, but they had still strapped her in, eyes propped open like a subject out of some awful propaganda-driven book. _1984_ came to mind. But the thought didn't stay there. There wouldn't have been enough room for her own thoughts when the stimuli started – the harsh sounds, the brazen images, the constant flashing, their words droning on, trying to turn her back into the questionless soldier she once was, the child soldier she had been before The Blue Lady and the puppet shows and the red balloon.

When she had started to struggle against the straps, they hooked her up to an IV of the sedative solution, and another with water and nutrients. They were going to make sure she survived this testing and make sure she was in peak condition to return to soldiering on.

While she had stared into the laser, they had given her the worst physical. They pricked her with needles, tested her blood and cells, injected her with multiple viral agents to see if she still had the immunity they had spliced into her DNA way back in her embryonic stage, tested her body temperature with relation to multiple physical levels of stress; they had cut her to see how fast she could heal. They had dislocated her shoulders and legs, then days later, pushed them back into their sockets. Were they testing how much pain she could take before she passed out? Was that it?

Then the shock therapy had begun. It was probably a week, but she had lost her sense of time while in the chair, relentless information jamming into her brain, demanding to be organized and understood and accepted without hesitation. Each time a jolt of electricity ran through her body, she thought it would jumpstart a seizure, but she could never be sure, since she had gone in and out of consciousness if the shock was too high.

The worst part had been their fertility testing. Max felt her heartbeat quicken just remembering it. With her head strapped to the board, she could only try to stretch her vision down to the merciless doctors between her legs, sticking every medical instrument they could find up into her. Who knows what they were doing? Exploring her ovaries? Removing eggs? Injecting specimen? Their sedative wasn't an anesthetic, and she could feel their scraping and prodding and rough, jagged movements inside her. She hadn't cried until that day.

Max shook herself out of the memory. She couldn't burden anyone with that information. It was hers and hers alone. She had survived that, and she had broken out. Again.

She had survived almost ten years of childhood military training in the worst conditions. She had broken out in mid-winter in deep snow, fallen through the ice into a subzero liquid atmosphere wearing only a nightgown of sorts, and still made it out alive and without hypothermia or pneumonia. She had spent ten years hiding who she used to be, making friends, getting a job, even dating – all without any serious problems.

But she had lost her brothers and sisters in the shuffle. Brin. Jace. Tinga. Zack. And Ben. She had lost Ben. Because of her, because of her unwillingness to have Ben return to Manticore and suffer at Lydecker's or Renfro's hands, she had been agonizingly merciful. She thought about him almost every day, replaying those moments in the woods when she had a decision to make.

She had compromised the safety of her friends, the identity of Eyes Only, and her own identity in the process. She had even been shot. Twice. And in all this, Alec was right. She had spent too much time trying for that normal life – the billionaire cyber-journalist boyfriend, caring friends, and normal job, when she just wasn't meant to be like them, with them.

Now, what did she have to show for it all?

Max thought about the Blue Lady. Though it defied sense and logic, she looked up through the darkness to the ceiling, trying to imagine the sky, the place the Blue Lady must be, and begged.

_Blue Lady, if you're there, if you're real… Please help me find a way out of here. I'm not ready to die. I don't know if there's anything else I was meant to do, but if you give me a sign, I'll do it. I don't want my life to mean nothing._

Max felt tears stinging her dry eyes. She tried to control her thoughts so she wouldn't dehydrate any further. She wanted to retain as much water as possible. But the weight of everything came crashing down on her already-slumped shoulders and she continued crying, wondering if this was karmic retribution for everything Alec had said; just the idea compounded on her, making the weight of the burden even heavier.

Alec, still turned on his side, heard her. She was trying to hide her sobs, but he was a transgenic, too, and that came with certain peculiar perks, such as adjustable vision and enhanced hearing. He already felt horrible for what he'd said, and for making her cry.

_This is what happens when I open my mouth, _he chided himself. _I'm supposed to protect her from this. There's no way she would have known about what would happen when her unit escaped, and it really isn't her fault that she discovered what it means to be free. She won't stop crying. I made her start and now she won't stop. Asshole._

Alec turned over and focused his vision on her. She had heard him rustle and stopped crying.

"Max," he started, wanting to have the words ready to apologize, wanting to sit up and go to her and wrap his arms around her and say how sorry he was for unloading on her. Tell her how he felt like shit for making her cry and that he didn't mean it and that they'd be okay. Tell her that lie but have it turn out to be true.

He thought about it before – maybe more than once – that they had been drawn together for a reason other than Manticore's breeding assignment. He had thought about kissing her. Just once. At least once. Before he died down here, he wanted to know what her lips felt like against his, because he was sure they were hard and punishing and soft and forgiving at the same time. Or at least to convey this urge he had to really show her how to be kissed. But that was probably the farthest thing from her mind.

They both held their breath.

Suddenly, a quick, loud buzzing sounded, rumbling the structure. A fast loud beep followed. Max immediately sobered and looked toward Alec as a bright light filled the underground bunker, lighting up Alec's face and Max's determined eyes. The light source seemed to be just outside their reach, outside the bars but inside the bunker. Just as quick as it had come on, the light blinked out.

"Guess the show's started," Max said.

Alec opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, the buzz came again, longer than the previous one, but a little softer. The bright light returned like one quick strobe, the beeping noise overlapping its departure. Then both noises stopped.

"Max! Close –" Alec began, but because the beeping returned before he could continue, she heard 'Max! Clothes,' which made no sense to her. The light was not back on yet and she couldn't see his lips forming words.

The noise was like enhanced hearing overload. It seemed like the level of volume varied per beep or buzz. Maybe the X5 brain had to work harder to adjust the volume received. Max wasn't sure if that was what was happening. Either her brain was trying to adjust the levels, or the levels were already too varied and her brain had nothing to do with it.

She raised her fingers to plug her ears and hummed to prove to herself she could still hear.

The beep stopped and she removed her fingers as the bright light came on. She looked to Alec. He must have been blinking – he sat very still except for his hand, which reached into his pocket to pull something out. The light died out and the loud buzz returned. It was so loud Max felt like her eardrums would explode at any moment.

Again, Alec tried to speak. "Cover –," but the loud buzzing prevented his words. The light came back on and she looked to Alec, who looked to be climbing off the cot and… _is he chewing?_ She wasn't sure because the light flickered quickly like a strobe and the beep played over the buzz.

Something didn't feel right. Alec looked like he was moving toward her in short bursts, but she knew it was the effect of the light creating the illusion. She felt dizzy and looked up at his figure approaching. His eyes were still closed and she watched as he took the item out of his mouth, split it into two and shoved the pieces into his ears. He walked toward her, eyes shut, with his arms outstretched, trying to make sure he didn't bump into her.

Max's eyelids became limp as she saw Alec chewing another piece of gum as fast as any transgenic could. Her arms fell to her sides, deadweight, and she began shaking. _He must have said 'Close your eyes'. _She felt weak and allowed her dull muscles relief as she lowered herself to the floor. Alec's strong arms found her on the way down, clutching her elbows and guiding her gently to the ground as the trembling continued.

She couldn't speak. Whatever light and noise combination this created, it must have short-circuited her brain, the language control portion. She couldn't muster any words. Alec laid her head against his chest, her shoulder against his torso, as they settled on the ground.

The noise was too loud, but she felt him humming. The reverberation was calming to her haywire body. Alec wrapped one arm around her head, covering her eyes with his hand. With the other hand, he popped her mouth open and pulled her tongue out a little bit. A moment later, she felt him shove a gummy material in her exposed ear. He embraced her shaking body firmly, his hand shielding her from the light, and hummed.

_Gotta keep humming_, he thought. _She's got something to hope for as long as I keep humming._

Alec thought about his twin's "Blue Lady." A couple years after the '09 escape, Alec had taken a course on modern religion. He wasn't sure if he believed in it, but he knew it offered relief and hope. He wondered if there was a god, and if there was, what was God's plan for him and his fellow Manticore alum? Were they doomed to this kind of life? Or this kind of death?

_If you're real, please help her through this. _

He continued humming, reverberating for her. He couldn't let her feel alone. It was probably the most devastating feeling he could think of – being alone. Max's tremors continued.

He had been humming for two hours, her body shuddering against him uncontrollably. The 'show' had induced her seizure. It didn't make sense. _The seizures were caused by a chemical deficiency_, he thought. _Right?_ _But if they aren't, then what is it? Did some other sucker soldier change the engineering of this program so that just the right combination of sounds and lights will induce one? Is it targeted to the 09ers? _Alec could hear the beeping and buzzing slow down, muffled by the gum in his ears.

He chanced opening his eyes. When he did, there was a dim light playing off the metal bars. Maybe a malfunction in the lighting. Either way, it was not dependable. But at least the show had stopped. Max's quivers slowed to a stop and she fell against him. He waited for her intake of breath.

_Breathe, Max,_ he willed. _Please._

As if answering his silent prayer, she breathed. She had fallen unconscious, or maybe to sleep. He wasn't sure which.

Carefully, he removed his hand from her eyes to find them closed. She looked like a sleeping angel. He untangled himself from her and stood up, stretching his legs a little, then lifted her onto her cot. He used the tips of his fingers to push her tongue back in – it was pretty dry and could use a little moisture. He swept the hair from her face and pinched the gum out of her ears, then his own. He mashed the pieces together and threw them out of the iron bars into the bunker.

Alec returned to his own cot and lay down on his back, facing the iron bar, then concrete ceiling. He sighed, thinking only two words as he closed his eyes, thankful to the Blue Lady for her efforts.

_She's okay. She's okay. _


	4. Day Four: Down

Max awoke with a start. She felt weak. She wished she hadn't fallen asleep, because she didn't have the vaguest idea what day it was. And if she didn't know what day it was, she wouldn't know how long she had left. _Fuck._

She sat up, Alec's jacket sliding down her shoulder, and looked though the darkness to his form. His shape and the smell of his leather jacket melted together in her mind.

"Alec, you awake?"

No answer.

Max's memories flooded back. She remembered the loud noises and bright lights sending her into seizure, and reached up to her head, sore from the sensory overload. Her hair had flattened on one side. _The side he held,_ she remembered with a tiny smile.

She thought about the gum in her ear and felt for it. It had already been removed but she caught a faint scent of mint.

Max stood warily and slipped Alec's jacket on. Of course it was too big on her small frame, but she felt comforted and warmed by it. She walked shakily over to him and looked down on his resting form.

She wasn't sure how long he had been asleep, but he looked almost worried, eyes moving rapidly in whatever dream he was busy dreaming. Max reached out a hesitant hand and rested it on his forehead, a gesture of comfort. His expression softened, his lips moved a moment, but he did not wake.

Struck by the warmth of his skin, Max's hand lingered just a little longer, trying to absorb it.

_You know sometimes you drive me insane with your sarcastic banter,_ she said to him in her mind. _But I have no better rival. _

Max smiled, then immediately frowned. She considered what might have happened a year ago that could change things now. What if she had been successfully re-indoctrinated? Would their breeding partnership have occurred? Would she still be in Manticore, pregnant and kicking ass? Max slid a hand over her stomach. _Not even a possibility now, _she realized. Something was unbelievably sad about dying down here without having had a child. Maybe it was from her surrogate? She wasn't sure.

_Or maybe when I broke out, if I had already known about the virus... I should have known they would do that. I could have told him we wouldn't be together. Or I could have let him think I'd died, and just started over somewhere else, free from all these connections. Maybe Zack was right._

She thought about what she'd been through with Alec – finding out about the virus at his gunpoint, the bomb in his head, hanging from the ceiling together trying to steal a baseball. _Finding out about Rachel, _she thought with a soft glance_. At least he had experienced love before. _

For sharing his story with her, listening to and not judging her about Ben, their constant tug-of-war and for taking care of her, she whispered, barely audible down against the still walls and structural perfection, "Thanks. You know..." She wanted to continue, to get specific, but she couldn't get the words past the lump in her throat.

Max wasn't sure why she whispered. Perhaps it was because she was so weak from the seizure or because if she talked louder she feared she might instigate another show – although according to Alec that would be it and she could relax. Maybe it was because she still had that creepy feeling that they were being watched. She certainly wouldn't put it past Manticore or the Familiars to have a camera trained on them somewhere, observing them as a test to see how they coped and dealt with the situation.

Maybe it would be too real if he was awake. Maybe it was because she didn't know how else to be like that with him. _Vulnerable. Open._

It was not easy to tell him something like that. Soldiers didn't get wordy. Too close to home. If he was asleep, a subliminal suggestion would do – and maybe when he woke up, he'd just know, feel, that he was appreciated. Maybe.

She saw his chest rise and fall, and saw his eyes flutter under their lids. _Something about him seems so majestic without his mouth to screw it up._ Max chuckled to herself at the thought. _It's actually kind of endearing, though. _

Alec's limbs twitched. _Must be dreaming again_.

Before she could think herself out of it, she leaned down and pressed her lips to him lightly, barely, on his exposed cheek, dark-blond scruffy with a couple days' growth. It felt relaxed against the prints of her lips. From so close, she caught a whiff the leather/Alec smell her brain had mashed together.

"Max," he mumbled.

Max leapt back from him. _I woke him up, _she realized.

_He's never gonna let me live that kiss down._

She waited for him to open his eyes and start in on the 'you want me' talk, but he snoozed on, eyes closed but still dreaming. _About me_, she thought. _He said my name in his sleep._ She kind of liked the idea, and maybe if he did remember her little kiss and harass her for it, she could use this as ammunition.

But he did not wake.

Once she was convinced he wasn't waking up, she looked around the room and caught a glimpse of light. For the first time since they'd been in this awful mess, she had a shiver of hope. Maybe it was a reflection, but there was a sliver of light.

It was a little colder in the bunker, now, still musty. It was still dark and dirty, but there was a light outside the bars.

Alec twitched again, catching her attention, and mumbled, "No, not again," drawing his hands up defensively. His brows furrowed before he continued, louder. "I'm not him."

His brain must have moved on, since he stopped mumbling after that, stopped twitching.

_Maybe he hates me and Dream-Max is torturing him, _she thought. _Maybe I can't use that ammo after all._

_Like I'll have time anyway._ She looked to the ground. _A few more days down here and we're both worm food. _The thought depressed her. Suddenly that little glimmer of light didn't seem all that hopeful. It seemed like someone's idea of a joke. _Taunt them with hope, with freedom. Alec probably built that into the scenario._

Suddenly, she wished she could take back that kiss, too embarrassed to have entertained that idea to begin with. _This is the guy who built this hell hole, and I just kissed him on the cheek like a happy little puppy._

Max removed his jacket and dropped it at the foot of his cot. She stalked across the floor and sat down on the dirt in front of her cot, laid onto her back and looked up toward the ceiling. She folded her hands onto her stomach and concentrated on her breathing.

_This is not fair. I'm not supposed to die. I'm not supposed to have lived my life without experiencing it all. _

_I've felt family. My unit, my brothers and sisters, they were my family. We may not have had the same blood coursing through our veins, but we were a family. We looked out for each other, protected each other. We trained together, ate together, slept in the same room together, celebrated together. We broke out together. It was Zack who knew we needed to split up just so we could have a shot at a normal life, at freedom. We would always be family. We shared a history no one else could share. Just like the other units must have. Just like the unit Alec was a part of._

_Original Cindy. I still remember when I met her. She was such a cool person – always had it together, always knew how to flavor a situation with her spin. Always kept it real with me. Always knew what it meant to be a friend. She'd been the human part of me when I couldn't bear to be the Manticore part anymore. _Max said an apologetic thank you to Original Cindy in her mind.

With a jolt of realization, Max felt as though one of her limbs was being ripped from her. _I'm gonna lose her. I'll be gone and she won't have anyone anymore. _

_I won't have anyone anymore. _

Max watched a couple of roots swinging gently at the ceiling. _The air started already?_ She looked over to Alec, who remained sleeping.

_I have felt loss, too. The human experience that brought me to the edge of humanity. Manticore was like this soulless place, and I just couldn't send him back there. Ben was too impressionable. He got caught up in everything they made him, and he couldn't separate himself from what they cooked into him. It was unfair. In his transformation into what they wanted him to be, what they made him to be, they succeeded in making me what they wanted us all to be, what they wanted me to be – a killer. _

A couple of tears slipped out the corners of her eyes. They traveled down toward her ear and dripped into her hair. She wasn't sobbing heavily, she wasn't heaving with breath; it just leaked out of her like twin small, lazy, ebbing rivers.

_And now I'm going to die without ever experiencing the whole 'love' thing. The romance, the moonlight, the rose petals on silk sheets. The swept-up-in-him-ness. The being made-love to. I've never had that. The connection. And now I'll never have that. The gentle touch._

_I'll never have the roughness either – walls against my flesh, the deepness of him inside me, loving me even though I am a genetically engineered assassin. If he knew what I did, what I really am, he wouldn't have ever looked at me like he used to a year ago, back before I got recaptured. _

_A year ago. _

_He doesn't look at me like that anymore, hasn't in a long time. And in a few days he wouldn't be able to anyway. I'll just be a distant memory. A failed experiment. _

Max put her hand over her chest. _This heart will have been for nothing._

She looked to Alec. What she would give just to pretend for an hour out of these last hours. She remembered the sparkle of his hazel eyes, covered now by soft lids. If she asked him, he would probably do it.

Max crawled over to him and curled up on his jacket, submitting to the feline DNA pushing her to stay by him.

She licked her lips. _I'm thirsty._

Max shut her eyes and fell into a sad sleep.

As if on cue, Alec woke the same way she had – with a jump. He turned over on the cot, red-eyed from the dreaming. He raised his hand to a faint ghost feeling at his cheek, looking for Max across the room. She wasn't there.

He heard her soft breathing and found her at the foot of his cot, cuddled up in his jacket.

He watched her face with full attention. During re-indoctrination, she had seemed like his savior and he would have done anything to help her get them both out of there. He remembered her surprise and anger when she found out she had been the X5 sent to eliminate Logan. Yeah, the whole thing was fucked up, but he didn't administer the retro-virus.

He remembered the glint of fire in her eyes – it lit her up throughout and that was the Max he knew. That was the Max who, outside of Manticore, seemed to have lost her purpose. He had vowed to get that Max back, however he could. She needed the challenge, otherwise she was bored.

There were two times he felt respected by her. During every verbal sparring match they held, jabbing one another sarcastically. Nothing excited him more than seeing the switch in her brain where she became passionate about something. And then she'd get ridiculously smart about something, he wasn't sure what – he'd been staring at her lips. They moved with perfection and he felt powerless to her.

The other was a specific time, when he realized she trusted him enough to tell him about Ben. She'd been beautifully broken that day, showing him a different side of herself, that he was sure she would not be forgiving if he had even entertained the idea of telling anyone else about; and he wouldn't have. It wasn't his to tell, and now it was a secret between them. It was the saddest he'd ever seen her.

Alec looked down to her, watching the steady breathing. Why did she seem deflated?

_It's this fucking hell hole, _he thought._ What if I had failed the mission objective when they asked us all to design these scenarios? What if I had a conscience and exercised it? _

_I wish I hadn't come back from that mission with Rachel. Maybe if I had gone AWOL and stayed in the outside world, I could have been someone else. I would never have met Max. I would never have interrupted her life and who knows? Maybe she never would have been recaptured._

He knew one thing. If any of that was true, they wouldn't be down there in this hole, crawling slowly toward death. He wouldn't be the reason for the sadness that plagued her unconscious face.

Though they were down there together, they were going to die alone.


	5. Day Five: The Wizard

With Max curled softly on his coat next to his rack, looking sadly sweet, he hadn't wanted to wake her and had carefully climbed off the cot and over her. He moved to the other side of the cell and turned to face her.

For the longest time, he stood there, still as she slept, and thought about the design. It didn't feel drafty or windy, but the temperature had been rising, most likely while they slept.

_I didn't do this. The air wasn't supposed to be quiet – it was supposed to be loud and terrifying. _Whoever input the info into the plan had added their own twist by slowly raising the temperature. _Slowly cooking us,_ he realized.

During his 'rest,' Max had come to lay next to his cot, and with the temperature climbing, had removed her shirt. She lay there, asleep, wearing her tank top and still sweating.

_Probably the leading factor in my waking up – her scent – wandering lazily around the room, looking for a way out and coming up short. Just like us._

From the angle at which he stared and with his adjustable transgenic vision, Alec zoomed into her face. She seemed flushed from the heat, but when her eyes fluttered under her lids and her lips parted with a simple breath, her expression changed to something he didn't quite recognize. Something sexy.

Her face seemed to redden and he was sure there was the smallest hint of a smile on her lips, which she moistened without warning.

Alec closed his eyes in disbelief. _Probably the effects of the air, making me hallucinate, _he reasoned. Except when he closed his eyes, he could smell her – her pheromones. They weren't overpowering like the X5 heats he'd smelled at Manticore before they discovered too much feline in their DNA, which they promptly adjusted and fixed in the live subjects. No, this was just a trail.

_Probably dreaming about Logan, _he thought, scratching his stubbly chin. As quickly as he thought it, Max whimpered Alec's name in the smallest suggestion of an erotic tone. He felt his eyes widen.

He took a step closer to her, his mind racing with the possibility of what was happening in her dream. He caught movement on her skin. One bead of sweat which had formed at the dip of her neck had started a journey over her olive skin and over the exposed part of her cleavage. The slowness of her perspiration and its wetness made him swallow as if his mouth was full of water. He wanted to trail his tongue along the path and rescue the bead from slipping into the dirt.

He felt drawn to her, like he had been drawn to her at Manticore. Maybe there was another reason Renfro had assigned him to her.

As he almost tiptoed back toward his cot and the Dark Sleeping Beauty, he imagined Renfro knew the moment he'd reported successful copulation that it had been a lie. Max was too strong for that, and that was something he admired about her.

Max began breathing a little harder and parted her lips a little wider until Alec had nearly gasped in response. Her eyes snapped open, training her creamy coffee stare right into him.

"Max," he said, surprised, trying to regain his composure. "I'm so glad you're awake. I was getting lonely."

She felt the migrating sweat and smeared it into her skin with her fingertips. Alec found her unconscious movements ridiculously sexy. _Who watches sweat move and thinks it's hot?_ he asked himself.

"Really hot in here," she said, getting her feet under her before raising her upper body.

_She even stands sexy. _Alec had trouble keeping his eyes away from her bare skin. He was starting to feel lustfully laden, his lids weighing over his eyes, creating his wanton expression. "No, that's just you," he said huskily.

_Did I just say that out loud?_ he thought. _It is hot in here. Maybe it's affecting my brain. Get ready to get smacked_.

But to his surprise, she didn't smack him. She didn't even roll her eyes.

"I was just having this dream," she said, almost as if in a far off place, and while pushing her hair back continued, "but it was too hot so I woke up." Max unbuttoned her pants.

Alec watched in excited confusion. "Uh, Max, what are you doing?"

Max licked her lips. "It's too hot; I need to get some of these clothes off."

Alec swallowed hard again. "It's gonna get cold eventually," he offered. "Remember? The air?"

Max continued undeterred. She pulled the zipper down and began to push her pants off by the sides, curving the fabric over her hips in an inadvertently sexy sway. She sat down on his cot and pulled off her boots and socks before sliding the denim off of her legs, one long leg at a time. She tossed the jeans to the floor.

Which left her in cheeky boyshort panties and her tank top and whatever was under that.

To Alec, it seemed the temperature just raised again. He felt his pulse riding shotgun at his throat, ready to jump out of his skin without warning. He couldn't _not_ look at her – she was so beautiful. He licked his lips unconsciously.

"Aren't you hot in all that?" she asked him, lightly caressing her own shoulders to create a chill, trying to get her temperature down a little.

_Is she on drugs? Are they pumping drugs in here already?_ Alec couldn't believe his own eyes. _Head in the game, soldier_, he ordered himself. It felt like he forgot all his game the moment she woke up.

Max lay back on his cot, bent legs resting foot-down on the surface, and stared at the ceiling. "Can I ask you something?"

_You can do whatever you want to me_, he thought. "Sure."

"What's the one thing you regret the most?"

Alec froze in place. Various images played in his mind – Psy-Ops, seeing Rachel die, meeting Max, and getting his ass kicked by her in the ring.

"Rachel, right?" she asked, continuing to tickle her fingertips across her neck.

Alec closed his eyes. _Yes, that hurt, _he answered her in his mind. "No," he said, trying not to sound like he was disrespecting the 'relationship' he and Rachel had, trying not to disrespect her memory. "No, that's not my greatest regret." He opened his eyes and found Max in his vision again.

Max looked over to him, bringing one of her legs toward her hands to rub the sweat over the surface, then repeating the action with the other leg. "It's not?"

Again, he thought to himself, _who finds rubbing sweat hot?_ He found it impossible not to want her, and he wondered how any man could possibly spend a year with her, not touching her, not staring into her big brown eyes, not kissing her full pink lips, not making love to her until neither knew their own name.

_But then again, I've been around her for almost a year, and I haven't made any moves. _He tried to convince himself that it was because he couldn't take another guy's girl, but logic failed when he realized that the 'other guy' was Logan, who still hadn't made a move on Max. Maybe Logan wasn't interested. _Who am I kidding? Who isn't interested in Max?_

"No, it's not," he finally responded.

Max looked over to him. "Well, I won't tell," she offered, looking around the room as if to suggest she didn't have anyone to tell anyway.

And she had a point. They were going to die anyway, so why couldn't he tell her the truth right now? "You tell me yours, first," he said, grinning. _It had to be something like not finding the cure to the retro-virus or taking Zack's heart – inadvertently as it were – or probably having to take Ben's life._ The last thought made him frown.

"What were you just thinking about?" she asked. "I bet you already know the answer to the question of what my greatest regret is."

_Was this some kind of flirt?_ he wondered. By the way she was rubbing her own skin, knowing he was watching her, he thought it had to be. He mustered the courage to be honest, then spoke. "My greatest regret…" he trailed. He took a deep breath. "Is that I am responsible for us being down here."

"Really?"

Why was she surprised? "Of course, Max. I built this bitch and eventually we'll die, and it just validates everything you ever said I was. A disappointment, a screw-up. There's so much out there, and I know I won't be able to experience it now, but more than that I'm guilty. 'Cause you won't be able to either."

Max's face twisted in confusion. "What?" She appeared to still be surprised. "What do you mean?"

Alec refused to continue. "Tell me what yours is, now," he said, trying to change the subject.

Max sat up and looked at him. "I regret never making love with someone."

Alec's eyes widened. "You're not a virgin…" he said. _That would go against everything I know about heat._

"No, there's a difference, Alec. Making love and fucking or screwing or nailing or whatever you want to call it, it's not the same thing."

_This is weird,_ he thought. _Max, schooling me on sex. _Max looked at his shirt. It was getting hotter in there and he was sweating, and he could feel her eyes darken on him, even though he couldn't see it fully.

"Me neither," he eventually added. _Might as well be honest. _

Alec heard the cot move beneath her as she stood up. She took a couple steps toward him, feeling the cool dirt under her feet. "I wanted to fall in love," she said, getting closer, "and I wanted to be made love to."

She was a couple feet away from him, now, and he could see how sweaty she still was. It made him tongue the roof of his mouth and swallow again.

"Do you know how to do that?" she asked, moving to a few inches in front of him. "Make love to someone?"

Alec nearly lost his brain function at her question. He felt himself harden. If she stood any closer, she would know.

She bent down and untied his boots.

_Max, what are you doing?_ he wanted to ask her. He knew what she was doing to him, but he didn't know why.

"Could you show me?" she asked, demurely.

Alec closed his eyes, searching for the answer. _This is Max. If I do this, there'd be no going back. I can't go back to being 'just friends' with Max. _

"I don't want to die, Alec. Not without this."

Alec opened his eyes and slipped off his boots. He could do this. He wanted this, too.

Alec approached her and placed his palms on her arms, making contact with her sweaty skin. The action felt sweeter than it should have. He stilled her. "Close your eyes," he said lowly, "and just feel."

With his hands sliding down her arms, she closed her eyes. "If you wanted to make love to me, how would you do it?" she asked.

"For starters, it wouldn't be down here," he said, watching as her pupils seemed to move under her lids. "It would be in a room with a skylight or on the highest rooftop, at night, so I could see how the moonlight played on your face, on your skin," he started, caressing her face with his fingertips, walking around her in a circle, trailing his fingers as he continued, "on the curves of your body." He swept his fingers around her waist and rested his hand at her hip. She produced goosebumps in his wake.

"Would probably have to be a cool night, because we live in Seattle, and because our body temp's a little higher; maybe a slight breeze through an open window to play with your hair, framing you." He raised his other hand and rested it at the side of her face.

Max took a deep breath and leaned into his hand, eyes closed.

"I would have some kind of flower petals play against your skin, like this," he sang, sweeping his fingers across her skin as if playing piano. He rained his fingers down her side, spilling over her hip and onto her leg. "And I would slowly slide my hands up your sides." As he said it, he raised her tank top off of her. He tossed the garment aside and slid his hands down her arms, wet from the heat.

Max shivered at his gentle touch.

"And I would kiss you," he said, nipping at her neck, lapping at her sweat. He kissed along her jaw line, lifting her up.

Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around him to keep the height he wanted. Alec continued kissing at her chest, down further until he brushed the soft skin between her breasts. Max raked her hands through his damp hair, pulling him toward her. She gasped for air.

He thought about the room. Obviously the cot wouldn't hold their weight, and he didn't want to do this on the rough and dirty ground.

"And then I would lay you down on the softest bed," he said, walking toward the front of the cell and laying her vertically against the bars.

Alec pressed her to the bars, folded his fingers around the cup of her bra, and pulled down. The second his mouth touched her nipple, she pulled him toward her with her legs, slamming his erection against her. She reached for the hem of his shirt and brought it up between them and over his head with rough need.

Alec returned his arms to her and unhooked her bra, pushing her against the bars to remove it from her shoulders. She pulled at his belt and pushed his pants partway down with her toes, just enough to expose him.

Everything was moving so fast and it was eerily quiet. Alec slowed to a stop, holding Max still against the bars. She held herself against him with her legs as he raised both his hands up to her face, sweeping her hair back with both hands, and pulling her face toward his. He had been staring at her lips. Finally he raised his gaze to her face and discovered her eyes open. She leaned down the rest of the way and pressed her open mouth to his – their first kiss. They stared into one another's eyes hungrily, ready for this next step.

As she kissed him intensely, she reached between them and pulled at his erection, trying to pull herself down on him. Alec stepped out of his pants and boxers, then slowly lowered her onto him, his hardness pushing her underwear to the side as he slid up into her.

Despite the fact that they were genetically engineered soldiers meant to fight for this country, and compartmentalize, and bury their emotions under superficial 'realism,' they began a perfect rhythm, Alec's naturally ribbed shaft rubbing against her internal walls, exciting and enticing continued action.

The heat in the room seemed to rise again. They felt their sweat mingling together at each spot where their skin touched. Even his hands at her hips or the small of her back seemed to slide with the slickness. Her aroused nipples had slipped up and down against his chest.

He grabbed at the bars behind her, helping to steady his rhythm, as Max reached behind her head and grasped the bar for balance and to maintain height. Even her legs at his waist created the slippery surface.

He felt her wetness deep inside of her; he felt like he was showing her how deeply he could love her, genetically engineered soldier or not.

He continued kissing her passionately and making love to her against the bars of their cage, the cage in which they would die in a few days. He continued making love to her until he was slamming her against the bars with bruising force, riding the line between pleasure and pain. He continued sliding her up and down until she cried out into the bunker, pulsing around him, making him come hard into her.

With their shared climax reverberating throughout the bunker, both transgenics breathing hard onto each other's skin, a light flashed.

Then a buzz sounded loudly, dying out quickly.

Then a beep played even louder as the light went out.

"Alec!" Max shouted over the beep.

He turned to face the wall from which he thought the beep might be emanating, and when he turned back, she was gone.

Alec's eyes shot open into the darkness. He felt an aching at his groin as the light began flickering in the cell. Again.

_Oh, fuck, _he thought. _Some jerk-off improved on my design._

Alec checked the cell for Max's form and found it at the foot of his cot, curled up onto his jacket. He felt his pocket for the gum but remembered he had chewed the last of it during the first light parade.

Alec hurried off his cot and curled himself around her unconscious form, protecting her exposed ear with his hand.


	6. Day Six: Halfway

Max's eyes drifted open in the hot room, feeling his strong heartbeat rumbling through her back. It was steady, like a metronome, and it made her feel safe. Before she could think another thought, she realized she was lying on his arm, which had snaked itself over her shoulder and rested just below her neck. His other arm rested on her shoulder, his hand against her ear. His legs were tucked behind hers. Finally, she realized the whole of him was curled around her. _Is this a dream?_

She panicked.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asked, inching out from under his arm. Her ear was sweaty from his hand having spent God-knows-how-long resting on it. She turned to face him.

Alec looked like hell. His hair was a mess, he was dirty and sweaty, and dirt clung to his sweat everywhere. He was bruising from the fight with White's fists. He had opened his eyes the moment she moved, but still hadn't said anything to her. His eyes looked tired.

Then finally, she saw it at his ear, and another on the dirt floor below his side-turned face.

The blood.

She crawled over to him and felt the sticky substance with her fingers to verify it was what she thought it was. Despite the darkness, she could see it was blood, and she smelled the unmistakable coppery smell. "What happened?"

But he didn't answer.

Max looked into his eyes. "Can you hear me?"

Alec pressed his lips together and shook his head. He could read her lips but the offending sounds were too loud and his eardrums had been damaged. "Are you okay!" he yelled, much louder than he knew. Max's eyes narrowed slightly at his decibel. He spoke softer as he continued. "There was another Electric Light Parade. Those bastards improved on my design!" Alec sat up.

Max felt simultaneously enraged by Alec's appreciation that Manticore had added to his design, and grateful for his protection while she had… _slept?_

_How could I have slept through a full round of the Light and Sound Show? The sound was so loud it busted his eardrums, but I am fine and didn't even wake up? Didn't stir at all?_

"Don't worry about it!" Alec yelled a little. "I heal fast!"

Max realized she must have been conveying a cold look since he had resorted to sarcasm.

"Shouldn't be long before the air!" he shouted, trying to hear himself. "And it's gonna be loud, and it's gonna hurt like hell!"

This whole thing felt like a nightmare from which she could not wake up. _Slowly dying down here. Never having really loved and been loved fully; never having the opportunity to live life to the fullest – to tell Original Cindy thank you for her years of friendship and support; never having another chance to see my family._

_Maybe I'll see them in heaven, _she thought with a half smile. _If heaven even exists. It'll be great to see them again, to see them smiling again, in the moonlight we had been draped in during our childhood late-night story-telling sessions. _Max thought about the Blue Lady and whether or not she would help any of them get into heaven. Would she make it nighttime in heaven?

_But if what Ben was doing was wrong – killing those people and giving her their teeth – then he probably won't be allowed into heaven. That's not fair, he didn't know what he was doing – he was sick and it's Manticore's fault._ Max frowned.

She remembered the snap of his neck as he was talking about the High Place, and cringed. It was the worst sound for which she had ever felt responsible. Running through the thicket to save her own life had made her feel so guilty. _Why did I just leave him there to get collected?_

She was struck by the irony of it. She had killed him in the woods and left his body there, and now this was karmic retribution. Someone had left her somewhere. She wasn't dead yet, but she was sure White wasn't coming back for them. If he did, it would be to sell their bodies to some overseas buyers, but she doubted he would do that since the transgenics posed a threat to the breeding cult bullshit.

She thought back to Ben. If he wasn't going to heaven, she wouldn't be either. Even though she had done what he asked, nothing about it felt right, and she was sure the Blue Lady wouldn't understand, and wouldn't usher her through the Pearly Gates based solely on her good intentions.

Max huffed. _It's unfair_.

_Life's not fair,_ Lydecker had once said to Brin. Max wondered, _was that part of the lesson? You're dealt the hand you're dealt, and there is no dealer to go back to, you don't get any more cards._

"What's wrong, Max?" Alec asked really quietly, picking up on her discontent. Maybe he was adapting to how his voice vibrated through his body and adjusted his speaking volume. Maybe he was already healing. Nonetheless, he knew something serious was brewing in her mind by the way her eyes filled with hot tears.

"Where do I start?" she asked, clawing softly at the dirt beneath her fingers.

Alec scooted over to her and sat against the bars next to her. She leaned against the bars, their arms touching. _Freedom in a touch,_ Alec thought. Abstraction was closer to the truth than language.

"This whole thing is so messed up," she said, staring off into the distance as if it was a future she would never reach, the carrot dangling in front of her that had kept her going for so long.

It grew unnervingly quiet in the bunker. Neither transgenic moved. Neither Max nor Alec made a noise.

Alec raised his arm and circled it around Max's smaller frame, resting it on her shoulder. Her heavy head dropped onto his shoulder, elongating her neck in the process, and she closed her eyes. He thought about rocking her gently, but that seemed too placating. He settled for a halfway hug and crept his hand up to her head. He pressed her head to his neck.

Though they were both sweaty from the days and hours of sitting, sleeping, talking, seizing and arguing, and tired from the hours of seemingly endless torture, she pleaded silently for him not to move his arm from her side.

She shook a little, trying to hide her tears. Being that close to him made it impossible to escape his intoxicating, earthy scent. She could crawl up into it and stay there, like a kitten on a windowsill in the sun. She could do that and it would be the preferable limbo. She would spend the rest of eternity right there in the crook of his neck, and maybe if they died that way they wouldn't be alone.

She raised her chin to allow her nose better access to his neck.

She could barely see the delicate, yet scruffy-blonde skin at his throat, and watched his Adam's apple bob under the surface like a buoy resting on wavy water. When she was at Manticore, she remembered learning several ways to kill a man that involved damaging his throat. It was odd that something so fragile stood firmly between life and death.

But now, trapped in a bunker, halfway to death, she was no longer a soldier. No amount of training could help her deal with the onslaught of her helplessness. She was no longer a soldier, an employee, a best friend. She was Max. Just a woman who would soon stop existing. Just a woman nestled in Alec's neck, where she was certain no one could find her.

Max wondered how many women had ever been so painfully close to his neck, how many others had depended on him like she had. She wondered how many women had seen those freckles up close. His neck's natural buoy raised and lowered as he swallowed. She pushed his chin up with suggestion from the tip of her nose, and before she realized what she was doing, she pressed her lips to his Adam's apple. She could feel him holding his breath in as he tilted his head mere centimeters toward the ceiling, eyes drifting shut, as if closing off one of his senses would heighten the others.

Maybe he was scared that this was it: he was delusional because Max, Ice Queen of the Century, who, since he met her had not even been on a real date, had her lips pressed to his neck, and that for sure meant they were going to die; or maybe that her acceptance that she was going to die made her desperate to connect with someone, anyone, him. He wasn't sure, and he didn't care.

He let out a breath and strained his neck to face her, looking down to the fragile, flawed woman who was scratching the surface of his scars, who was taking over his mind, who was looking to him with a soulful solace and absolute salvation. He squeezed his eyes shut, tight, wondering how long he would be able to feel the incomprehensible cutting beauty of it before he ceased to exist. He slid his lids open.

Max breathed unevenly, burrowing her creamy, chocolaty eyes into him. His brow muscles collided with confusion, as if to ask a question to which only Max knew the answer. They sat statue still, staring for a minute that felt like forever. Alec followed her movement as Max reached up and curled her fingers in a wave through the hair at base of his head, tickling at his neck with her fingernails. She continued the motion, tapping her way forward. He felt compelled to her, as if the ridges of her fingerprints were pulling him to her, caught by the scruff of his neck. He felt like all the atoms in his body were rushing toward his face to meet hers. A sort of call to arms.

Within milliseconds, their lips barely grazed each others'. Max felt her skin heat up, or was it the air? When they came apart, Alec's brows relaxed and she stared at his lower lip. She jerked her chin forward, slicing through half of the inch that separated them, and hesitated, taking a deep breath and looking back up to Alec's hazel eyes, which seemed to be searching hers for something intangible. She wasn't sure exactly what they were doing, but she liked the way it felt. She wondered if any other woman experienced the same beauty she just felt with having merely brushed her lips against his. She wanted that soft friction back.

Alec's lips sunk down, slowly closing the remaining half inch gap between them. Max closed her eyes as Alec brought his hand up past her cheek, coiled his hand in her hair and guided her lips to his. Her lips were unbelievably soft and pink. So soft he figured this had to be a hallucination, because no one's lips should be this soft after five or six days without water. They should be pale and cracked from the dehydration. But they weren't. They were unbelievably delicious. And he couldn't stop tasting them. And he didn't want to stop.

"Well, if this isn't the perfect poster for the Manticore Breeding Program," came the voice of a familiar foe, mocking the memory of the disobedient soldiers before her.

Max and Alec split apart. Outside the iron bars of the cell stood a very-alive Former Director Renfro. Her once-spiky blonde hair had grown out a bit, but her features were just as hard and angular as she remembered.

Max looked to Alec with surprise, then back to Renfro. "How…?" she managed to grunt out, her hand slipping from Alec's neck and down his chest, their intimate moment fading like a stone tossed into an ocean, sinking, as her hand came to rest at her lap. The last time she'd seen Renfro was the day she burned down the facility, the day Renfro had taken a bullet for her, because Max was 'the one' they'd been looking for, and she was supposed to 'find Sandeman.'

"You're confused," Renfro said, shifting her gaze between Max and Alec. "How am I here? you're wondering."

The transgenics both stood and neared the front of the cell. It was at this moment Renfro removed a tranquilizer gun from her hip holster and shot Alec in the chest. The little red-feathered dart stuck through his shirt like some kind of avant-garde art. He looked at the dart, surprised he hadn't dodged it. Max lunged to his side as he slumped toward the floor. She laid him there gently.

"Sorry, 452, we needed to talk alone."

_The only explanation for why she's still here, _Max thought, _is that it was planned._ Max stood and returned to Renfro.

"I was sent in to Manticore when I was about twenty-five, as a 'researcher with ambitions of running the place someday,'" she said sarcastically, adopting an expression befitting a liar trying to get their way. She paced in front of Max, smiling arrogantly. "My mission was to discover what Sandeman was doing. There were rumors he was genetically engineering a weapon that would one day destroy us – the company I work for. But he was so secretive."

Max looked over to Alec. She had a terrible feeling about this.

"As you probably guessed, that weapon is you, 452," Renfro stated. "And 494 was supposed to take you out a year ago, after you infected Eyes Only. But he failed."

Renfro tilted her head in an attempt to decode Alec's unconscious expression.

"Then we remembered these… cages," she continued, looking along the structure's welding and slapping her hand against a bar. "Good design by 494, but we added a few tricks of our own." She seemed proud. "Ames did well, and for that he'll probably be rewarded or promoted. Maybe both."

_Ames,_ Max thought. She gritted her teeth at the mere thought of his smug, ugly face. "So, what is he, your second in command?"

"Sort of. When Sandeman was contracted with Manticore, he left a pet project behind. We didn't even know where he'd gone – we'd assumed he was dead, that's how well hidden he was."

_Like Witness Protection_, thought Max. _Was Sandeman in Manticore to escape the Breeding Cult?_

"He had even left two of his sons behind with the Familiars. So imagine our surprise to discover over ten years later that Sandeman was not only alive, but also creating genetic mutants like you, and like his other sons Joshua and Isaac. Apparently, he disagreed with the Breeding Cult's decree and supplanted his own."

"But not you," Max said. "You didn't have a problem accepting their rules."

Renfro folded her arms across her ridiculously pristine black blazer. "This is just a business to me," she admitted. "When I told you that you were just meat to me, I wasn't kidding."

"So you're spearheading the Cult Committee and killing transgenics," Max surmised.

"Well, the second half is true, but I don't give a transgenic's ass about the Familiars and their agenda. See, it's you we're after."

Max stared straight into the bitchy blonde. "You and who? Manticore?"

"No, I got out from under Manticore's thumb last year," she said. "It wasn't easy, either, but you came through. That whole getting shot thing was my exit strategy. And it worked like a charm." As if Max wouldn't understand the sarcasm, Renfro pouted as she said, "But I did have to risk my life to do it."

Max felt a little bit of anger rise up in her. She had put her own life on the line dozens of times, had been shot a few times, had gone on dangerous missions all the time. _But I'm a soldier,_ she reasoned.

"You look worried," Renfro said patronizingly. "I don't' know why – there's nothing you can do to change your destiny. You'll probably overdose on the drugs before you'd die from starvation or dehydration. Doesn't matter anyway, as long as I get my dead transgenic, you, 452."

Max grimaced at her.

"I'm almost ready," Renfro said in vagueness, eying Max with a muddy ambition.

"Ready for what?" Max asked. She looked to Alec, as if he had an answer for her, but he remained breathing steadily, unconsciously, looking like an angel all grown up.

Renfro removed a taser from her blazer pocket and shot through the bars at Max. Max hadn't seen it coming, and before she knew what was happening, she had become that stone sinking into the ocean.

When Max woke up, Alec was crouched over her with his finger at her pulse. She sat up groggily and he withdrew his hand.

"Got a little worried there," he said.

"What happened?"

"I don't know," he said. "You passed out." Alec rubbed a sore spot on his chest.

Max looked around. Renfro was gone. "Unbelievable!"

Renfro had come down here to make sure Ames had done his job; she had divulged her plan to have Max dead, and deserted them.

"What a cold-hearted bitch she is," Max commented.

Alec looked around the room. Somehow time had passed and they still hadn't felt the severe temperature fluctuations.

_I must be delusional, or at least heading toward dementia. I don't even know if it's night or day, or how long we've really been down here. Thank God for Max. Otherwise I'd already be insane. And why is she pacing the cell?_

"Okay, come back down here and just kill us already!" Max yelled at the ceiling somewhere near the corner.

"Max, what are you doing?"

"I just want to get it over with already."

"What?"

"I'm going stir crazy in here and I just can't stand it anymore!" Max clawed at her head, pulling her hair in the process. "We're dirty, sweaty, bloody, weak, thirsty –"

"I'd almost give my right eye for a cheeseburger right now," Alec interrupted.

"Aren't you slightly freaking out about this?" she asked, amazed by his lack of seriousness. "I mean, we're not getting out of here, Alec. We're just not. Even if any of them came back, we'd still be screwed because," she paused, adopting a really serious and staccato tone as she continued, "No one knows where we are – not even us!"

"Well, what can we do about it?" he asked.

"I don't know. I just –" Max stopped. She sat down next to him on the cot. "Maybe we're already in hell."

Alec's face grew solemn. "You're in hell?" he asked, but with a melancholic twinge of 'with me?' tacked on to the end.

Max saw his hurt expression. "I didn't mean that," she said softly. "I just – I don't believe I'll get to go to heaven or the High Place, so if we're already dead, then I must be in hell. Or limbo."

Alec stared at his own fidgeting hands, trying to answer the question for himself.

Max remembered their kiss, the one Renfro interrupted. She rested her hand on his shoulder.

"You know, even though we're torn up," he began, testing the bruises on his face from White's beating, "your hair still smells good."

Max didn't move as she smiled to herself. _How did he do that? Make me feel like I'm the only person who matters to him?_ She wanted to return the compliment, but she held back. She traced her bottom lip with her tongue, just to see if his taste was still on her lips. It wasn't.

"So whatever happened to the air raid? Did I miss it?"

Alec looked up. "I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe this is something else they changed."

"I wish Original Cindy could save us," Max said. "Or Logan, or hell, even Sketchy. Someone!"

Alec frowned and hung his head.

"What?"

"I just realized that the only person I would call to rescue me is sitting right next to me."

"That makes you sad?"

"Well, yeah, Max. You've saved my ass on several occasions, but we're down here together. I can't call you to come get me because you're already stuck in this hellhole with me."

"Well at least we have each other to ride out the boredom," she said.

"That's rather optimistic of you."

Max smiled. "Well, one of us has to be."

Out of the blue – or at least it seemed to him, Max nudged him to turn toward her, and when he did, she threw her arms around him in an embrace. Alec squeezed tightly.

A metallic ping sounded, starling them both. They turned to look outside the cage for where it came from, but neither could see. Moments later, they heard water flowing.

_The ceiling is caving in,_ Max thought. _How is that possible? _They were getting sprayed with by something, but she thought the roof above had been a cave-like ceiling of dirt.

Alec saw the holes, though. _Must be the 'improvement', _he thought. There was nowhere inside the cell they could go to avoid getting drenched. The ground beneath them was becoming muddy.

Then Max felt it. The freezing cold air. Her hair was matting to her head and against her body. Alec grabbed his jacket and wrapped it around her. She raised it up with her arms and held it over both their heads.

"I guess we're in the last stage," Alec said.

"There could be more!" Max shouted over the rushing water.

"That's not very optimistic!" he added.

"The air is so cold." She shivered.

"No doubt it's either a narcotic or an amphetamine that I'm smelling."

"Why would they put that in the air?"

"To help us hallucinate; keep us awake."

Max shivered again. "Yeah, she said we would OD."

Alec pulled Max into his arms, hoping their combined body heat would help them avoid hypothermia. "Who?"

"Renfro."

Alec looked at Max questioningly. "And when was that?"

"A few hours ago? I don't know for sure."

"Max, you said something to me earlier before you passed out. Do you remember what you said?"

Max watched his face intently. _Was this some kind of test? _She had no idea to what he could be referring, and remained quiet.

"You said, 'I'm almost ready, ready for what?' Then you shook like you were having a seizure and went limp in my arms."

Max looked at Alec's chest. _No dart hole. _

_Fuck._


	7. Day Seven: Moving Mountains

Max furrowed her wet brow in confusion. _So that whole kiss… was it real?_ she asked herself under the tent of Alec's jacket, as the spraying water made a mud river at their feet, a river which flowed outside the bars and through the path in which Renfro had not been just standing. _Wait, he said I went limp in his arms, so that means I was in his arms, right?_

Max wasn't sure. The thought of it gave her a slight shiver of excitement which he would probably think was a shiver from being doused with cold water. If their intimate moment was a dream, she hoped the High Place would be something like that moment – forever.

_But if it was a dream…_ She was in his arms right now and it wasn't a romantically-charged moment. They were trying to keep warm. For all she knew, he had protected her from another onslaught of noise or light or both, and she could have slept right through it. Again.

She looked right, trying to read his face. Though his face was cleaner from the moments under the water, he was still scruffy, still dusty and dirty, still tired. _But not his ears, _she noticed. _So was there another torrent of sound torture?_ She gritted her teeth in frustration. _If I could just remember!_

_Renfro was clearly a hallucination, but the kiss…_

Alec hunched behind Max with his head to the right of hers, assuming the stance to allow his jacket to protect them both from the water. Another spray burst from the sides of the bunker, sending powerful, directed streams to their sides. Then another burst. And another.

He wondered when Manticore had added the water to the torture scenario, and simultaneously wondered if he was currently hallucinating. If Max had, he might be, too.

Alec thought about their conversation earlier. _Are we in purgatory? It makes sense. For all the things we've done for Manticore over the years, it wouldn't surprise me if the forces of evil were trying to figure out how soon they could get us._

His expression softened and a shiver ran up his spine. _Not Max, though, _he thought, staring down at the back of her head. _Even if she does bust my balls on a semi-daily basis, The High Place would be lucky to have her – even just to stare at the dark angel for the rest of eternity._

Alec closed his eyes at the deep pain in his core. _At least I finally got the chance to kiss her before I die. Or was that a hallucination, too?_

Alec let out a frustrated sigh and looked around, trying to think of another way out of this mess. _Maybe if we could hold on longer than they expected, when they come back we can strike a deal. _

He dismissed the idea as soon as he thought it, feeling the squishy water in his shoes, sifting between his toes. _Are they trying to drown us?_

Twenty minutes passed before the water slowed down. It had been too loud to hear one another, so they had crouched down like couples figure-skaters until the water level had raised half a foot.

He felt a little light-headed all of the sudden. The air was coming on full blast and he felt the narcotics in his system already. Max squirmed below him, no doubt uncomfortable in the position they'd maintained for the past half hour.

The spraying water came to a lazy stop and the two transgenics carefully spun out of their positions. Alec raised the jacket as if a storm had just cleared and he was looking for the sun – for proof that it was over. He tossed the ruined leather coat into the river at their feet.

"Thanks," Max said, checking her clothes for dryness. Alec turned to walk toward his cot. Max saw his back was soaked, and there looked to be a strange yellowish shoreline at the edge of the spreading spray. _He was right about the drugs._

Alec turned and sat on his cot. He gave her half a smirk and laughed.

"What?" Max asked, not quite getting the joke. She looked down at her clothes and saw they were soaked, too – not as badly as his were. She looked around the cell, noting once again how far up the water had risen.

Alec looked specifically at her hair. Immediately, Max raised her open palm to her hair and discovered it was a matted, gnarled mess. Alec was almost at full-throated laughter when she finally broke into a smile and chuckled aloud.

"Oh yeah, like you're any better," she said, motioning to his messed up hair and general appearance.

Alec looked down at his own attire and laughed more, which made Max laugh louder, too.

As their laughter died down, the smiles faded from their lips. "We must be getting delusional," he said. "I don't think this stuff is supposed to be funny."

Max sat at her cot and pulled her feet up onto it, sitting cross-legged.

"Hey Max, know any good jokes?" he asked, mirroring her movement and lifting his booted feet out of the muddy water. He pulled his boots off and peeled his socks from his feet.

"Uh, nope. Just a couple of funny stories from Original Cindy. How about you?"

Alec leaned back against the bars. "Yeah, I got a few of those with Biggsy."

"Biggsy? What kind of a name is that?" she mocked.

"What kind of a name is 'Fixit'?" he mocked back, smiling.

"Yeah, okay. Touché."

"Anyway, it's just 'Biggs,' and I didn't name him. Lola did."

"Lola?" Max said in a deep, almost sultry voice.

He grinned again with a spark in his eyes, as if remembering something indescribably entertaining. Max watched him with a smile.

"So was Biggs your friend?"

Alec cocked his head. "Yeah, I guess so. We were partnered for some missions when we were kids, and then he was my second in command. I guess we kind of grew up together."

"Kind of like your brother, huh?" Max said, and as soon as she did, she thought about her own brothers.

_When we were kids, Zack had been the unit leader, but he always seemed to have this question in his eyes. It was meant to look like assuredness, but I knew better. And he always let Ben tell stories and he always let Ry tell the jokes – not that we even knew what 'funny' was._

"What are you thinking about?" Alec interrupted, appreciating the sweet smile on her face.

"I was just remembering my brothers," she offered.

She didn't think about Ry very often. He had escaped with their unit in '09, but had been recaptured not long after and re-indoctrinated. He was eventually reassigned to a new unit. According to the documents in Renfro's office, he had died on mission.

_But he was funny. He always pretended to be Lydecker and assumed this macho bravado stance and talked with an almost dull tone._

"You know what's sick?" Alec asked, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the bars. "I know Manticore was fucked up, but I'm kinda glad I went through it, ya know?"

"Yeah, I guess. Pisses me off…"

"Why?"

"Couple years ago, I ran into Lydecker at a genetics conference." Just the memory or his face, those cold and scientific eyes boring into her, trying to place her face in the history of his life – it all made her ill. "And he implied that we were all better for the experiences, torture and training that Manticore put us through."

Max pulled her hair forward over her shoulder and twisted it. "And he was right." She stared into the distance somewhere past Alec's head. "'Cause I don't think everyone else out there could do what we do." Max looked despondent.

"But would you trade it?" he asked.

Max was quiet. She had longed for a normal life since the moment she knew there was a world outside Manticore, a world that was begging to be discovered and experienced. She had wanted the normal friends and job and boyfriend. She had spent her first ten years under a microscope and wanted nothing more than to just be nobody to Manticore.

But Alec had a point. It was impossible to imagine if she had been born to a family instead of created in a test tube and then implanted in a surrogate, impossible to figure out if she'd live a meaningful or trivial existence not having known about Manticore; it would be improbable that she would have met such wonderful people – like Kendra and Original Cindy and Sketchy, and even Logan.

It also meant some innocent people could have lived, though. Vogelsang, probably Dr. Tanaka. It would have meant that she wouldn't have had to deal with Bruno Anselmo. It would have meant that Logan would have retained the use of his legs. Not to mention, her other brothers and sisters would have survived. Ry, Tinga, Ben… _Even Rachel_, Max thought sadly with a dull ache in her heart.

"I wouldn't," he said.

"Hm?" Max asked. She had been so caught up in her own thoughts she forgot his question.

"I wouldn't trade it," Alec said. "'Cause then I would never have met you."

Max almost blushed. In all her daydreams about meaning nothing to Manticore, she nearly forgot what it felt like to mean something to someone. It filled her with a warmth that helped fight the cold water and chilly air. "How come you never said stuff like that up there?" she asked, nodding toward the ceiling and it's undoubted above-ground life. She showed a half-smile.

Alec's lips moved oddly as he tried to decide if he should say what he was thinking. He felt like he might throw up at any moment. _Is this the drugs?_ he wondered.

_Why does she call me on it now? _Alec laughed to himself at her stubbornness, '_cause that's what it is, right? She knows she's gorgeous; she knows I stayed in Seattle because of her – how else could she explain it?_

Ultimately, he went with his old fallback. "Because you'd probably smack me."

Max crossed her arms. "Nope, not good enough," she said like a disciplining teacher. "The real reason."

Alec took a deep breath. "Max, I don't want to die with you mad at me."

Max frowned playfully. "I won't be mad," she said.

_Does she think I'll just roll over because she's frowning and pouting with her perfect lips? Damn it._

"Because I don't want you to be sorry," he tried again.

_Huh? _she thought. "Huh?" Max's eyebrows arched in confusion. _Why would I be sorry?_

She remembered one time she had apologized for letting him out into the world, inflicting him on the world. The thought of it made her hang her head in shame, toward the muddy water. She realized she had been out of line and that she had never apologized for being so harsh.

"Okay, I owe you an apology for that," she said lowly. "For thinking you would have been the one to murder those people. It was Ben and not you, and that was unfair, and I'm sorry."

Alec seemed relieved, she noticed. He lay onto his side facing her. There was something about his posture that gave her déjà vu, as if she subliminally recognized the movement.

"No worries, Max," he said. "You know I can't stay mad at you."

_What? That's not a typical Alec response._

"Alec, are you okay?"

He closed his eyes. "Just tired."

_No, no, no, _she thought. _It's not time yet. _ Max felt her insides panic. _Don't let him fall asleep!_

"Alec, hey, stay awake with me," she tried.

"Max, I don't have shark DNA," he mumbled.

Max jumped off of her cot and splashed her cot across the cell over to his. She butted it up against his cot noisily. As she laid down on it, resting her head on her elbow and facing him, his eyes drifted open a little.

"I knew you couldn't stay away from me," he joked, almost low enough to be a whisper. He smiled.

"What's the real reason?" she asked.

"For what?"

"Why are you being so nice to me down here? Is it because we're going to die?"

_Bite the bullet, 494, _he scolded himself.

"It is, isn't it?"

"Am I a jerk to you up there?" he asked.

Max pressed her lips together. "No, not really," she said. "I guess you just tick me off sometimes." She paused. "But just a few minutes ago, you said you wouldn't change a thing, because-"

"Because I wouldn't have met you. I know, I just-"

"So really it's _you_ who can't stay away from _me_!" she joked, smiling wide.

"Yes," he said with a completely straight face.

_Did they just kick the heat back on?_ "What?"

"Yes, Max. I can't stay away from you."

Max wasn't sure how to take this. _Is he just rambling, slipping into delirium? Is he trying to get some deathbed tail?_

Alec burrowed his head into his arm a little. His breathing slowed.

"Don't go to sleep now! You have to explain! How come you never said anything?"

Alec's face seemed to sag with sadness. "Because you're in love with Logan," he said. "I didn't want your pity. And I really didn't want to die knowing I'm the reason you'll never get to see him again. And now you have that look on your face."

He closed his eyes. The inflection of his voice made him sound farther and farther away. She could feel a few tears stinging her dry eyes. "Alec, don't go to sleep."

"There was a pretty strong sedative in the water. I can't fight it – I'm soaked in it."

"Then take your clothes off!" she said, pulling at his shirt hem.

"Max, it's too heavy," he mumbled.

_The drugs, _she thought. _They're making him too weak. _ She knew she couldn't move Alec around. She, too, was feeling a little weak. But also wide awake. _Stupid shark DNA._

"Alec, try to stay awake," she pleaded, grabbing his arm and shaking it.

"Max?" he said, eyes still closed.

"Yeah?" Max was tuned in to Alec's face, trying to figure out how she might be able to keep him awake.

"Did we really kiss?"

Max reached a couple of fingers up to her own lips, trying to remember a ghost feeling of his lips on hers.

"Your lips were so soft on my throat," he confirmed. "That is my favorite kiss, my whole life."

Max moved what felt like a centimeter away from him in surprise. _Life is so stupid, _she thought, _and bittersweet. One perfect kiss_.

"In case I go soon, I'm really gonna miss you, Max," he slurred.

_How? How is it possible? Can you miss someone if you're dead? _Max tried slapping his face softly to see if he'd stay awake, but he was almost, if not completely, unconscious.

"Call me Maxie," she said, her voice dripping with utter desolation.

Alec didn't budge. She watched how his chest moved up and down steadily. _At least he's still breathing._

Max looked around, unsure of what to do. She knew it was only a matter of time before she fell into a sedated sleep, too. _And then…_

_How fucking merciful of Manticore to put us to sleep before the end. Like fucking animals._

She wanted to cry, to feel something and to be in control of at least one thing, but no more tears would come. Now she was truly alone.

Max felt as though she was being pressed to death with heavy stones. He had tried to shield her from the drugged water, which he was now completely soaked in and which now was affecting him much faster than it was her. It all meant he was trying to make sure she survived – at least longer than him.

"Why?" she asked, reaching out to his face and scraping gently at his stubbled cheek.

Max laid on the cot next to Alec for several hours, wondering how she'd feel moments before she died. She hoped calmness would wash over her and she would feel at ease. She hoped she'd be asleep when she finally ceased to exist. But more than that, she hoped never to fall asleep. And somehow, she hoped the Blue Lady would see fit to save them.

If she thought about the Alec next to her, unconscious, on his way to death, then she panicked; so she tried to think about all the positive things about him and all the negative things he'd done that made her smile and forgive him.

She remembered seeing just his eyes through the bars on her cell door that first day they met. She liked the danger in them, but she wouldn't have disrespected what she technically didn't have with Logan to simultaneously satisfy Manticore's twisted breeding partners scenario. She did have her dignity, after all. She remembered thinking he'd be unpredictable, and she was right

But his hazel eyes, which were infused with green in all of her memories, haunted her occasionally. She was drawn to him. Could be his stellar cocktail, which had made him so attractive and masculine to something like ninety percent of all women. But she liked to think it was the soul she saw behind them.

Max laughed at herself. _Who else would be waxing rhetorical in a situation like this?_ She looked at Alec's messy hair and concentrated on breathing in the same rhythm with which he was breathing. It calmed her nerves; it gave her some solace. _But how long will he continue breathing?_

She considered the probability of survival and made a decision.

Lowering herself off the cot to a seated position in the water, Max laid back into it. She cupped her hands and swept the water over her skin repeatedly. Though it was muddy with dirt and filled with probably tons of drugs, she felt it washing her, carrying away everything that didn't matter. It was cold and somehow appropriate for her last bath.

As she rubbed the mucky water into her skin, she thought about Original Cindy and said a silent apology for leaving her alone. _I'm really gonna miss you, girl._ She knew if Original Cindy had been there, she would have said those words right back to her.

Max scooped up a few more handfuls of water then released them over her shoulders.

_If I'm going to die down here and he's not going to wake up before he…_ she couldn't even bring herself to complete her thought. _Maybe with enough, I can go to sleep, too._

Max made quick work of her fully-clothed bath.

_I don't know who I think I'm fooling, _she realized. Even though the thought of dying as terrifying her from the inside out, the drugs were making her eyelids droop. _I'm not about to admit that the strongest man I know is going to die before me._

_Except I just did. I thought it. _

Her face twisted in pain. She rose up out of the water and lay back down on the cot. She inched toward Alec, picked up his arm, and scooted in toward him so their bodies were touching. She draped his arm over her shoulder.

Alec's heartbeat stomped through her chest like the vibrations on train rails. She could feel the druggy water absorbing into her skin, into her system. It was working.

Alec had been asleep for… who knows how long, and here she was, shark DNA, drugged up, weak and awake, fighting for unconsciousness, cuddling into Alec. Max stretched her neck and gave him one last kiss – his favorite kiss.

_At least we're not alone,_ she thought, closing her eyes.


	8. Day Eight: The Aftermath

Though her eyes were closed and she was immobile, the first thing Max noticed as the squeeze of her hand. She expected the ridges of Alec's fingerprints to glide over hers comfortingly, but it somehow didn't feel like his. Who else's hand could it be? _It has to be his_.

Max heard a steady beeping. Truthfully, it was sort of annoying, because she knew if she was hearing the beeping again, it meant the drugs hadn't worked. And if the drugs hadn't worked, she was still alive. And if she was still alive and Alec was squeezing her hand, then he was still alive and would soon have to watch her die. She felt as though she was trekking through the woods on the darkest night of the year with temporary blindness and an inability to stop.

Suddenly she panicked. The beeping quickened and she thought she must be waking up. But she didn't want to open her eyes to yet another round of torture.

Max felt her body convulse. She had no control over it. It seemed as though she was trapped in her subconscious or a nightmare and she couldn't open her eyes. She tried to scream but no sound came out.

_Am I dying? I didn't want to be awake for this… Alec is squeezing my hand. _She realized he must have woken up after she had submerged herself in the druggy mud river._ He woke up and now we can't spend our last few minutes together because I was stupid. And selfish._

Max knew her body was drawing in oxygen at a fast pace. _How horrifying it must be for him to see me die like this. _

She felt ice travelling through her veins, shoving up her arms and moving toward her head._ This is it_, she thought. _I'm sorry, Alec._

Max's body went lax as she slipped into unconsciousness.

"She seems relaxed now," Original Cindy said, squeezing her girl's hand again. "When is she gonna wake up?" Original Cindy fixed her brown eyes on Dr. Shankar. The fact that she knew about Max and Alec and still agreed to help was something for which she would be eternally grateful.

"I don't know," said Dr. Shankar. "I've only known a few transgenics and they all seem to have their own pace when it comes to healing." But the tone of her voice was despondent, not hopeful, and that worried Original Cindy.

"Will she wake up?"

Dr. Shankar frowned. "I just don't know yet. It's certainly a good sign that she has brain activity." It seemed like a consolation prize. _Your best friend's going to die, but at least she has some brain activity._

Original Cindy sighed. _But it's not a good sign if she's seizing and shaking uncontrollably. _She didn't want to think about the possibility that Max wouldn't wake up. It was Max. She kicked ass, as she was going to make it through this.

"She should be okay for a little while if you want to go home and get some rest," Dr. Shankar started. "Besides, hanging out in Terminal City isn't good for us. Maybe we should think about moving her to a cleaner place – you know, back near the hospital."

Despite the fact that she knew Dr. Shankar only wanted what was best for Max, and despite the fact that she knew her own argument would only annoy the doctor further, she said, "No. She wouldn't want that."

"Cindy, sometimes we have to make the decisions of what's best for the patient, especially in situations like this where the patient can't make the decision herself." Her white coat flared with the breeze floating through the building.

"No. She wouldn't want it." Original Cindy folded her arms and stared at the doctor. This was one topic about which she would not change her mind.

Dr. Shankar relaxed. "All right. I spoke with Dalton and he's gonna call me if there's any change. I'll see you in a little while."

Dr. Shankar left the room and Original Cindy picked up Max's hand and held it in her own. Max seemed pale, unlike her normal vibrant self. Her lips were a little shriveled, but they looked better than they had when they'd finally found the right bunker. The yellowy substance on her clothes seemed to be partially drying off of Max's skin in a powdery flake, and most of it had come off of her when the field medics cut her clothes off to assess her injuries.

Original Cindy looked around the small room. It was lined with a couple of good will cards, flowers, balloons… Two people had even brought in teddy bears with little "Get Well" signs on them. Max definitely had a lot of people counting on her to make it out of this darkness.

"Come on, girl. You're gonna pull through this."

A knock came at the door.

"Hey OC," came Sketchy's voice. "Can I come in?"

OC stood and laid Max's limp hand down at her side. "Of course, shugga. I need to go call Normal anyway, tell him I'll be out another day. Are you going back to work tomorrow?"

Sketchy walked into the room, trading places with OC. "Yeah, I have to. Got rent to pay."

"Aiight. Well, tell everyone I said hi and thanks for their prayers."

"Will do."

Sketchy sat bedside tried to find an angle at which he could see her eyes, thinking that at any moment, she would open them and he could get his friend back.

"I'm pretty sure you can hear me, Max," he started, smiling. "That's one of your superpowers, isn't it?" He laughed, but his face grew serious as he watched her breathe steadily. "I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry." Sketchy hung his head. "Original Cindy reminded me some time ago that you were – are – the best person I know, so… I'm sorry for treating you like a freak."

Sketchy reached out and squeezed her hand. "And I fully deserve an ass-kicking when you come out of this."

Outside the makeshift hospital room, OC hung up the phone with a shake of her head. "That man's gonna 'bip' himself right out of business," she said to herself, smiling.

Logan and Asha approached her from the corner of the hallway. "Hey," he greeted.

"Hey."

"How's she doing?" Asha asked.

"Still asleep. She had another convulsion but Dr. Shankar sedated her."

"Yeah, we just passed her in the hall," Logan offered. "She said it wasn't a seizure, just some reactions to the drugs they pumped into that room."

Original Cindy could tell by his tone that he was holding something back. She looked toward Max's room. "Sketch's in the right now, but of course you're welcome to go see her."

"Excuse me," Asha said, heading around the far corner and disappearing down another wing of the building.

"Why didn't you call me?" Logan blurted out.

OC took an immediate step back. "Excuse me?"

Logan's face remained in its clearly concerned state, his glasses reflecting the hall light. "Why didn't you call me the second you knew she was missing?"

"You mean the second I realized _they_ were missing?" she corrected.

Logan pressed his lips together angrily. "Yeah, as I understand it, Alec made the death chamber, so excuse me for not having compassion for the guy."

"He's probably the reason she's even still alive," Cindy said, folding her arms. "And excuse me for not calling the guy who put them in the damn hole in the first place!"

Logan almost gasped at the accusation, but before he could argue, Original Cindy continued. "It was your bad intel that put them in the sewer to begin with. On top of that, Alec had to persuade Max to let him tag along. Otherwise she would have been in there alone."

Logan digested the information and his face transformed from angry to sad.

"Now I'm gonna pretend you didn't just say what you just said, and let you go see my girl." OC lifted an open palm in the direction of Max's room.

Logan froze in place. His voice was small. "Do you think she blames me, too?"

"No, but I ain't pretending you're not partially responsible."

"Maybe I shouldn't go in," he said, giving a sidelong glance toward the wall between him and Max. _How can I possibly go in there if Max thinks this is my fault, too? What if she thinks I did this on purpose? And now I'm here to finish the job?_

"She's unconscious. She can't decide to reach out and smack you for revenge."

Logan passed Original Cindy with some trepidation and walked toward the room. "Thanks."

Sketchy heard the door and turned to see Logan. "Oh hey," he greeted. OC had already told him about how Logan's intel had gotten Max and Alec in trouble, but it's not like he knew it was bad when he gave it to them. Sketchy wasn't sure what to say, but he felt Logan wouldn't intentionally set Max up. "I'll give you some time alone."

As Sketch shut the door behind him, Logan approached the unconscious Max and pulled the chair away from her a couple feet. _No reason not to be precautious_. He watched her heartbeat bump steadily on the machine and heard the beeping. _Thank God she's alive_, he thought. He quickly realized the potential irony in that statement, what with the fact that she was created in a lab.

He found himself dumbstruck by the whole situation, unable to find the right thing to say. "Max," he started, looking down at his hands. They were smooth and white, and it made him realize what a sheltered life he'd led. He mostly fought the good fight through cyber-journalism; he wasn't out there on the streets, coming face-to-face with the lowlifes and criminals and desperate people like Max was.

He felt a little bit like a flawed hero, knowing there were things he had to sacrifice in order to keep fighting for justice, knowing he would feel guilty if he lost any member of his team to the fight, even though it was bound to happen sooner or later, and knowing he best served this fight with his fingers at the pulse of the information flow. He was the brains and she was the brawn.

_And the beauty_, he thought, smiling. Even with cracked, dry lips and messy, oily hair and skin, he thought she was probably one of the prettiest girls he'd met. Of course that was with the qualifier of lab-made. He wondered if that made a difference.

He looked back to Max. After a couple minutes of just watching her breathe, he spoke. "I'm sorry, Max," he said. "I didn't know the intel was bad. Apparently, the familiars have infiltrated my informant net and you paid the price."

Asha knocked on the glass. Logan turned and nodded her in. She looked tearful, as if she'd been crying. She poked her head into the room.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

She shook her head.

Max's heart monitor began beeping a little faster.

"Just give me a minute and I'll take you home." Logan turned back to Max as Asha shut the door behind her. She turned, and with her back to Logan, crossed her arms and leaned her head against the glass.

"I know you're gonna come out of this, Max." He looked down at his hands again. "And when you do, there's something we need to talk about." With one last glance, Logan stood up. "See you soon."

Outside Max's room, Asha seemed to have just finished a conversation with a very concerned Joshua towering over her.

"What's going on?" Logan asked.

Asha nodded to Joshua to explain.

"Dr. Shankar said Alec in critical condition – nearly dead when we found them. Overdosed."

Logan looked to Asha to confirm that this was what she was upset about.

"My dad died from that shit," she spat out as if it were poison.

"Come see Alec," Joshua offered.

Logan wasn't so sure he wanted to see Alec. Even through Joshua's broken sentences, he could easily understand that Max did not overdose, which meant Alec took the brunt of whatever it was they went through down there, and he was in critical condition, whereas she was in some kind of deep sleep from the trauma and could wake up at any moment.

Despite his own hesitation, he nodded and Joshua led them to another hallway and into a barren room at the center of which laid an unconscious Alec.

"No brain damage, she thinks," Joshua provided.

The room had almost nothing in it except for the bed, its occupant, and some medical tools. Logan wondered if the tubing and tourniquet were there because Alec had already been given a transfusion, or in case he needed one. A single chair sat next to him on one side, and the oxygen and heart monitor machines hummed steadily on the other side as the IV dripped into his arm.

"Just waiting for Alec to wake up."

Logan was surprised at how pale Alec was. His skin was starting to get its natural hue back, but his lips were almost shriveled and he still seemed messy and dirty, except for the spot on his arm where Dr. Shankar prepped him for the IV and the divot of his nose where the oxygen tubes rested. Logan had never seen Alec with a beard, either, and it was strange.

"How did you find them?" Asha asked, turning to Joshua's big frame.

Joshua pointed to his nose. "Canine in my cocktail," he said.

"That's one powerful sniffer," Asha complimented, surprised at how powerful it had to have been in order to smell the two transgenics through all of the dirt, water, drugs, and million other scents through which Max and Alec could be disguised.

"Joshua also had help. Lydecker." Joshua nodded, confirming his own words.

Logan's stare became instantly icy. "What? You brought him in on this? How? And more importantly, why?"

Joshua looked toward Max's room then back over to the comatose Alec and stated simply, "Max and Alec in trouble."

"And he just happened to know where they were?" Logan asked, finding it rather incredulous that Joshua would bring in the person Max hated the most in the world, and that Lydecker would already know where the two were being held. Joshua picked up on the anger.

"Lydecker not like the others. Not as bad."

"Oh, so you picked the lesser of two evils?"

Joshua growled, and then remembered where they were. "Max alive. Alec alive."

"Lighten up Logan," Asha said. "If not for Joshua, they'd both still be missing, and probably dead."

Logan found himself outnumbered. Why couldn't they see that Max would have hated the idea of teaming up with Lydecker? Logan scoffed and left the room.

"Sorry," Asha said.

"He'll come around, right?" Joshua asked. "Max and Alec, that was the plan."

"I know. Thank you, Joshua," Asha patted him on the arm and jogged to catch up with Logan.

Joshua stood in the door, alone, for a minute. "Don't worry, Alec," he said to his comatose friend. "Max is okay." Joshua heard the steady heartbeat beeping, but he felt like he was talking to himself.

Max's eyes drifted open slowly. She was in a dark room, attached to a heart monitor, and stuck with a tiny IV needle that made her hand itch. For a split second, she panicked, thinking she had been kept alive just to be tortured again, that Manticore had succeeded in whatever sick game they were playing, but as she looked around the room, she saw the teddy bear and balloons and flowers littering the otherwise sparse room and felt herself calm.

Max gave a half-smile, realizing she had been rescued, but it quickly faded when she saw she was alone.

_Where's Alec? Did they not save him, too?_

By the sheer fact it was so dark in the room, she assumed it was late night or early morning. Sitting up, she groggily assessed herself. Someone had redressed her in a hospital gown but she was not in a hospital room. It had to be Dr. Shankar, because if it was Sam Carr, Logan wouldn't have let him leave.

_Logan. Where's Logan? If he didn't call Dr. Shankar, who did? Original Cindy? Joshua? I'll have to ask someone how they found me. And what happened to Alec, and where we really were and whether or not I'll be okay._

Max carefully swung her legs over the side of the bed and placed her bare feet on the cold, carpeted floor. _Amazing,_ she thought, flexing her toes into the coarse bulbs of carpet. She reached up and turned off the heart monitor, then removed the censor from her index finger.

_Still dehydrated_, she realized, feeling dizzy. _Must have found me pretty quickly after I…_ She didn't finish her thought. She was trying to keep calm while she thought about the million scenarios that ended with Alec not being rescued, too, but they all led back to the unbearable idea that he wasn't rescued because he was already gone by the time the bunker saw daylight.

Max stood up and pulled the back of the too-big gown around her small frame and toward the front. The rush of blood at her quick movement made her lightheaded. She decided to leave the IV in. _Probably need that_. She grabbed the pole from which the bag hung and wheeled it alongside her body as she left her room and entered the empty hallway.

The wheels made tiny mechanical noises as she padded, otherwise quietly, down the hallway. None of it smelled like the leather/Alec smell. It was unnerving. She checked each room she came to for the tell-tale sign of life, but they were all empty of people. Instead, they were populated by broken and dusty equipment, desks, chairs, cabinets.

_Must have been an office building before the Pulse, _she thought. _And it must be in Terminal City, because otherwise these offices would be used._ Her deduction was confirmed when she walked past an office with a broken window and caught the odorous scent of rain-soaked chemicals in the air.

_Why would they put Alec so far away?_ She wondered, continuing down another hallway. _Unless he isn't really in another room, unless he's already dead. _Again, panic filled her body and she forced the tears back. _No, don't think like that. Probably the only two rooms that were clean enough for us._

As Max approached the last few rooms down the hallway, she heard it. _Heart monitor._ The she smelled them – the drugs and the sweat and the Alec scent. _No more leather smell_, she realized with a frown.

_Okay, soldier,_ she began her pep-talk internally, _you've seen carnage before – even as a kid, so it's not going to be that bad. He's probably just going to be lying there, sleeping. No blood, no weird yellow chemicals or drugs. Just Alec._

Her heart jumped up and lodged itself in her throat. She approached the last door, and as she reached for the knob, she closed her eyes. With a twist of her wrist, she cracked the door open and dragged her IV with her into the room.

She could hear his shallow breathing, and though worrying, she still felt grateful that he continued drawing in air.

But when she saw him, laying there helplessly, his arms limp at his sides, legs straight out in front of him as if he was laying on a board or in a coffin, scaly lips in a downward purse, and still eyes closing her off from his usually lively hazel stare, her eyes began to well with tears. She wasn't sure how she could help him.

"Alec?" she cracked out hoarsely, surprised by how it all sounded. She shouldn't have been surprised – not after days of torture and a drug bath. When Alec didn't answer, and instead remained motionless on the bed, those salty tears streamed down her face.

She wheeled her IV further into the room. "This wasn't supposed to happen," she whispered, standing in front of his visitor's chair. Again, he didn't respond.

Max swallowed hard. She wanted to tell him she was sorry. Sorry for everything – for blaming him for their getting caught and thrown down in that hole, for the darkness, the sound torture, the seizure, the lecture about his past; but more than that, she wanted to thank him for everything – for protecting her during her seizure and to prevent another while he bled from his ears, for taking the brunt of the spraying water… _For the kiss…_

She wanted to tell him everything, but she couldn't. Not with him just laying there like that. She needed to fix him, wake him up, make him better.

When Max saw the medical tubing and catheter, she knew what to do. She punctured her right arm and prepared his left arm to receive the catheter. _We are supposed to be universal donors for each other, _she reasoned, _so I should be able to transfuse him. _

As she loosened the pressure on the tourniquet and watched her blood start flowing toward the unconscious man before her, she realized, _but he's not losing blood, it's just poisoned._

She looked around the room for another set of transfusion tools but didn't see any. Finally, she landed her hopeful eyes on her own IV.

She pulled the needle and catheter from her hand and prepared his right arm for transfusion. After pricking his vein and watching the catheter fill with blood, she removed the needle from him and looked down at her left arm. She punctured her vein without hesitation and released the pressure on the tourniquet. Her eyelids felt heavy as she watched his blood travel through the tube toward her.

_I hope this works._

She climbed clumsily into bed next to him and pulled his arm around her, accidentally tangling the medical tubing. She laid her head on his chest and concentrated on breathing in his same rhythm, like she had done in the bunker. His steady heartbeat filled her with hope.

After an hour, Max felt Alec's drugged blood coax her to sleep, weakened.


	9. Interlude: Between Dreaming and Waking

There was a faint beeping, like a muffled cry through some distant fog, but there was a beeping.

_I am not dead._

Beep. Beep.

_I am not dead, just unconscious. If I could just open my eyes, I'll wake up. I can do this._

Beep. Beep.

_I can do this. Manticore trained us how to do this. Just recognize you're in a dream and will yourself to wake up. _

Beep. Beep.

_Open your eyes. Wake up._

_Beep, beep, beep._

_Open your eyes, soldier!_

Beep, beep, beep, beep.

_Open your eyes, damn it!_

Beep, beepbeepbeep…

_Open your eyes, 494!_

BeepBeepbeepbeep!

_Open your eyes, Alec!_

Alec's eyes slid open, adjusting immediately to the darkness, but still adjusting the sharpness of his focus. His eyes felt dry and stung, like every blink was punctuated with sandpaper.

_The ceiling must be gray. By the look of it, this room probably hasn't seen fluorescent light in a few years. Small, little grey ceiling tiles. Tiles with little holes in them all over._

He tilted his head to the left and saw the door jamb to an open door, which seemed to lead out into a hallway. The door jamb was painted brown. The boringest brown he'd ever seen for a room. The door was an off-white, but the door jamb was brown.

When he rolled his head to the right, a window came into view, but the angle at which his head laid so flatly prevented him from seeing out of it. The window sill was brown, too. The same boring brown. He could only see the window frame and a corner of the upper part of the window. It looked grey outside, too. If he could see better in the dark, he'd be able to make out the leafless tree that reached up toward the next floor.

Alec adjusted his head back to the ceiling. _How long have I been out? _

He turned his head to the right again and noticed the brown, clean windowsill with no flashy adornments or molding. _Must be an office building, _he concluded. The vertical blinds hung completely still. No open air, no open window, no breeze. Nothing.

Again, he turned his head to the left and saw more empty space and a chair outside the room.

_I'm in a hospital room_, he realized. That was the only explanation he could think of for the barrenness of the room and the lack of people around. _In terminal city, _he added to himself. _And no one's around._

He tried not to think about the fact that no one seemed to be around. No one seemed to care that he was laid up in some office building in terminal city. _Maybe they found me first, and they're working on Max._

_Oh, Max… _He remembered those days underground. Thirsty, hungry, weak. He remembered their conversations. Were they all real? Were any of them real? How could he be sure?

He remembered how mad she was at him for having created the living hellhole. He remembered the softness of her lips on his throat. _Dear God, tell me that was real_, he pleaded, hopefully.

He felt snug in the blankets but soon felt an additional warmth at his right side. He gingerly raised his head and saw the dark hair of someone formed softly to him, his arm resting nonchalantly at her shoulder.

When he saw the yellow, flaky dandruff at her scalp, he confirmed his suspicion.

_Max!_

He tried to make a sound, but nothing came out. He didn't want to alert anyone who might be around waiting for them to wake up; if he did make too-loud a noise, they'd for sure wake Max and take her away from him.

He wondered momentarily if she was alive, but relaxed as he felt her heartbeat through his side like a gentle purr. He curled his hand around her shoulder, just to make sure it was his.

_So if we're both in here, why are we alone?_

"Max?" he managed to whisper hoarsely. Seemed like that sandpaper traveled down from his eyes and into his throat.

She didn't stir.

Past her head, he saw her right arm laid across his chest, tangled up in tubing. At first, her arm on his chest sent an excited shiver through his body. She was willingly touching him. She was willingly connecting to someone, and that someone was him.

But he soon panicked, thinking she wouldn't have willingly connected with him unless something terrible had happened, something that required an exchange of bodily fluid.

_Blood._ He saw it in the tubing, wrapping around them both like a strawberry-colored, delicate rope.

_What did you do, Max?_

He raised his head further and followed the tubing until he saw where they were connected.

_Double transfusion, _he realized. _The only reason a soldier would transfuse is if the other had lost a lot of blood. _

Alec tried to assess his body. He didn't remember bleeding profusely from any part of his body, and he didn't remember receiving any major injuries while they were down there.

_But a double transfusion…_

_Either she woke up before me or she never fell asleep down there, which means the dose she took wasn't as bad as mine, because the only reason for a double transfusion would be for her blood to clean mine._

He tried to peek around to see Max's face, his own contorting in concern and pain, as if asking, _'Max, you would really do that for me?'_

Alec told himself he shouldn't be surprised – Max did stuff like this all the time… risking her life for others; in fact, on occasion, she'd ask him to do the same, and he always did – because she had asked him to.

She'd risked her life to help Ben, even though that didn't turn out as she'd expected, to try to save Tinga, even though that was also a losing bet, to go on endless missions for Logan, which usually gave the cyber-king exactly what he needed while ignoring her needs, and she actually died to bring about Manticore's end.

_Stupid Manticore, _he thought. _What a strategically dumb-ass move. Yeah, bring your best soldier-gone-rogue back to life. She's smarter and stronger than you, but don't worry, she wouldn't do anything to upset Manticore's systematic scientific abuse._

_I guess that shouldn't surprise me either, though. Manticore could sometimes be such a cake-walk, and if you create soldiers smarter than you, you should expect them to best you at some point. Idiots. _(But he thought it with a twinge of irony, since if they had been smarter, he'd be different, or maybe even nonexistent.)

_But she'd always disobeyed Manticore._

He thought about her blood mixing in with his and focused on her platelets and how they must be attaching to and repairing his cells. It was relieving – to have Max in his corner.

She had only transfused one other person before: Logan. Original Cindy had told him about it. It was an act of near-desperation. It made him wonder if he had almost died.

And now, after all they had been through, above ground and below, here she was again, saving his life. Again.

_Why would you do that, Maxie?_

Alec's heart monitor's beeping increased as he held back the tears stubbornly forming at the corners of his eyes. He sucked in some air and looked up toward some unknown entity, as if the ceiling could answer his questions.

_She's not going to die._

Though it made him feel light-headed, he raised his head and studied the tubing pathways. He inched his left hand to her right arm and turned the tourniquet, then repeated the action to his own right arm.

Immediately, he felt weakened and let his head fall back to the pillow.

_Oh, Maxie. Always saving my ass. Can't help yourself when my ass is involved, can you?_

Alec smiled and closed his eyes, slipping slowly into unconsciousness.

_You're all I need._


	10. Interlude: Between Waking and Dreaming

She felt like she had just closed her eyes moments ago. It was only a second. But when she drifted back into consciousness and discovered she was alone in the shabby 'hospital' bed, curled at one side, she figured it had to have been longer.

She felt slightly weak, but generally okay. She expected to see the slumbering man next to which she had fallen asleep, but there was an Alec-shaped absence where his warm body once was. The tubes she had inserted in both her arms were gone, and had left two little puncture marks in their wake. She wondered how long she had been out.

She was not alarmed by his absence. Undoubtedly, Dr. Shankar had found them together in Alec's room, had seen the progress she had made by transfusing Alec, and had removed the tubes and sent a totally-alert Alec to shower up. She had probably taken on too much of his blood, and that had probably caused her to spend a little more time in dreamland than she anticipated.

Swinging her legs around over the side of the bed, she slowly stood up. She faced a window which looked over a dilapidated, gray parking lot with several old wheel-less cars up on eroded cinderblocks. The vertical blinds that blocked only some of the view were colorless and broken, some of them missing. She couldn't shake the musty smell of the room out of her nose. Was this the best room for a hospitalized transgenic?

The makeshift hospital seemed unnervingly quiet. She found herself wondering if everyone had left her there. Maybe something happened with Alec that made them rush off without her, figuring she would be fine as soon as she woke up. Was that what was happening? She didn't know. She felt as if the breeze outside that was pushing at stiff tree branches and icy gravel was also coursing through her veins, and it sent a chill throughout her body.

Max turned toward the door, and though it was still night time – or maybe it was night time again – she had the eerie feeling that something was wrong. Even in her weakened state, she could still see it.

Blood. At the floorboard near the door.

Max's eyes widened slightly as she rushed over to the door and knelt down. She knew it was their blood – their shared blood.

_I poisoned him, _she thought, bringing a hand to her mouth in surprise, as if a hand to the mouth could prevent her from realizing what a terrible thing she'd just done. If Manticore could inject her with a retrovirus directed at Logan, why couldn't they inject her with a retrovirus directed at Alec? Or if they knew that Alec had tagged along that night because they were both thoroughly sauced and flirting incessantly at Crash, then they could inject him with a retrovirus to kill her. _Oh, god, _she panicked.

_Stupid Max. Why did I transfuse him? My blood was supposed to help him. They knew I'd do it. They knew I'd help him if they poisoned him. Alec said it himself, that's what I do._

She stepped over the blood with some caution and into the hallway. He had to be somewhere.

In what was probably the lobby area during the pre-pulse office-building days, Max noticed a few lights on and one or two additional people working on computers – though they didn't notice her. She walked further out into the hall and nearly ran into Normal, which nearly sent the stack of packages he was holding into the air.

"Whoa, there, Missy!" he shouted, looking down to her. He made an uneasy face as he focused on her abdomen.

Max looked down and saw her hospital gown turning red, blood seeping through the fabric. She immediately grabbed at the surface with one hand. _I don't feel pain, but I'm bleeding? This doesn't make sense. _

Normal lifted the stack of packages to her. "These are all hot rushes! Don't get blood on them!" Normal gave her a near-parental stare and took off opposite the direction from which he came.

Max set the packages down. _No way am I making any deliveries until I change. Not even on the clock yet._

"Moron," she said aloud, as if Normal should have known she wouldn't be making deliveries in a hospital gown.

She continued down the hall and rounded the corner to see Dr. Shankar and Original Cindy. Max smiled in excitement. She was so happy to see OC that she actually waved to her friend, except stretching her arm up aggravated her cut and she winced. _Why feel pain now?_

OC didn't see Max as she approached, and Max expected at any moment for her old friend to finally notice and jump for joy that she was awake and alive. OC remained entranced by the grave issue she and Dr. Shankar seemed to be discussing in such hushed tones.

"Original Cindy?" Max asked, tilting her head when OC didn't even acknowledge her presence.

Original Cindy looked toward Max's room, and seemingly right through her friend, then returned her gaze to Dr. Shankar and nodded. "So what does that mean? You found Max and Alec connected by tubes?"

Dr. Shankar nodded. "Max figured she could filter Alec's blood through hers, and she was right. It worked. Alec's alive and he's going to be just fine."

OC nodded and folded her arms. "That sounds like good news, but I'm sensing a 'but'. What's the bad?"

Dr. Shankar frowned. "In her earnest to save his life, she further endangered Logan. With Max's blood in him, Alec now carries the virus targeted to Logan's DNA."

"So if Hot Boy touches him, he's dead," OC surmised.

"Correct."

"So no handshake, no pat on the back, nothing."

"Nothing."

"Okay, well what about Max?" OC asked.

Dr. Shankar let the silence ride a little longer than OC would have liked.

"Tell me," she demanded.

"I just don't know if Max is going to make it," Dr. Shankar finally said.

Max's eyes widened. _Am I dreaming?_ she wondered. _Or am I already dead?_

In a sudden panic, Max turned in place and bolted toward her room. She could see there was someone in the room – someone in the bed. Someone her own size and shape.

Max's eyes welled with tears as she watched from outside the room, watched as her body breathed in and out.

Dr. Shankar led OC out of the hall right past her, and Max realized she had to be dreaming, because they couldn't see or hear her, and when she looked down at her stomach, she discovered it to be both blood and pain free.

She remembered her Manticore training and prepared herself for the mental feat of trying to wake herself up.

But then Original Cindy's voice sounded like the voiceover in a movie."Dreams are your mind's ways of trying to get something into the conscious."

_So ride this bitch out,_ thought Max. _Okay._

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shadowy figure duck around the far corner. She turned toward the direction of the shadow and paced forward through the gray breezeway, passing several offices on the way to the end of the hallway. She came to an old wooden door.

Since she was in a dream, she turned the knob without hesitation and pushed into the room.

It was an old, Victorian-style room with creaky floorboards and ornate rugs and wall fixtures. In one corner, she saw two armchairs and a small couch crowded around a deep brown wooden table. _Definitely not hospital material._

She sauntered into the room with a childlike sense of awe, and with a very direct sense of déjà vu.

_Have I been here before?_

Max stepped toward the closest wall. With its deep red wallpaper and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, it looked like a rich person's study. She let her fingers drag along the leather-bound spines of the books, reading the titles as she inched toward the corner.

_War and Peace, The Art of War, Genetic Theory._ The books seemed so familiar – not as if she had read them before, but as if she had seen them on this shelf before.

She suddenly felt as if someone was watching her and spun on her heel to face him.

She saw the backside of an older man. At once she knew it was Sandeman. She wondered if his face was a memory she had blocked out.

He seemed to be speaking to someone. Max tried to maneuver her way around Sandeman to see who it was he was talking to, but when she stepped to the left, so did he, and when she stepped to the right, so did he.

_Is this my own stupid subconscious getting in my own way? _

Max finally settled for climbing a chair to the side of Sandeman and looking down on his subject.

A young boy with sandy blonde hair and scrawny limbs sat blindfolded in the chair across from Sandeman. It was a deep burgundy leather armchair, and the boy looked like he was swimming in it, but trying to take up the whole chair by stretching his arms out.

"Do you understand what is being asked of you?" Sandeman asked the boy.

The boy was nervous, but pushed out a squeaky, "Yes, sir."

"Alright," Sandeman said, turning toward Max. "Now, you, special girl, come down from there."

Max's eyes widened as if she'd just been caught. He could see her in this part of the dream. But she still couldn't see him. She lost her balance and fell toward the tiny table. She hit her head on the wooden table and blacked out.


	11. Day One Above: Awakening

A very weak Alec stood alone in the black-mold-cornered gym showers downstairs from the office/hospital, letting the water spray over his skin as if it had some unknown purpose, as if it had its own agenda to follow.

It would be the harsh force of the water through those old pipes which would soften the caked dirt at the natural folds of his body, loosen the mildewed water from his tightened, dry pores, and exfoliate the sludgy, pasty drugs from his skin. It would be the pressured rivers that would carry the unwanted substances from the top of his head, over the stubble at his neck, down the slopes of his tired chest and bruised back, down his shaky legs, over the arches of his feet and away from him, toward the tiny grate and into the drain. It would be the stream, which was surprisingly unforgiving, mercifully unforgiving, that would eventually remove the unwanted, and the longer he stood there with one knee slightly bent, the ebbing runoff meandering lazily downward, the less he felt he was going to die.

The soap was no help. It looked as dry as he had felt down there. It was coarse and had dried upward in layers, but he still felt like he was supposed to use it. If he scrubbed with it hard enough and kept it under the water long enough, maybe it would rehydrate itself and he could uncover its previous usefulness. So far, he wasn't having much luck. It seemed to leave swaths of redness in its wake as he slid the grating bar over his arms.

_Just as well_, he thought, sardonically. _It'll take off multiple layers of my skin, but most importantly, the shit we were exposed to down there._ He hoped it would scrape away some of the guilt he felt, too, but subconsciously he knew it wouldn't. He would always have everything that happened and didn't happen down there burned into his memory, lumped onto his shoulders.

He reached up to his throat and hesitated with the soap. _Was that kiss real?_

_Probably not. Evidently I was pretty far gone, and so was she._

He both hated and loved Manticore at that very moment; loved them for creating the environment in which he could hallucinate impossible things, things like Max kissing him so gently and giving him those penetrating stares, and hated them for his now knowing those were all hallucination.

He rubbed the crude soap over his neck and up to his head. He tried for several minutes to work up a lather strong enough to wash his hair.

_Down there, _he thought. _We were down there together. Stuck. Stuck with each other. And I had told her the truth. _He closed his eyes and let some of the stream wash over his eyelids. _And when the air came on, she had removed her clothes. Right? Doesn't matter, _he answered himself, _even in my hallucinations I wanted her._

Or worse yet, he realized he wanted her to want him back. To want those same things of him that he wanted of her. Complete trust. Companionship. Love.

_Whoa there, 494, _he silenced himself mentally, scrubbing the soap over the back of his head. _Love? No, love is sweet smiles and secret midnight swims, and soft kisses. Not sarcastic banter and life or death situations. No, the only person I've ever loved was Rachel._

The instant he thought it, he felt guilty, as if he was cheapening what he really wanted with Max, and how things were drastically different with Max.

_She knows me. The real me. Not everything, but at least what she knows is the truth._

Finally, a sudsy lather was forming.

_But there's no way she could possibly feel the same, could she? She's been carrying a torch for that ordinary forever, and something about him had kept her swept up in him. _

Alec laid the soap down in its holder and submerged himself under the spray. He felt the drugs and grime and dirt all washing away. It made him feel lighter, even though the memories of everything continued to weigh on him.

And her stare. The expressions of her eyes. It would be impossible to wash that way.

Dr. Shankar, Joshua, and some of the other transgenics had gathered around to see the miracle of his awakening, and because they were so concerned about how he was doing, he had forgotten about the dream.

But here, alone, in the surprisingly hot shower, with washed-clean hair and soon-to-be-clean body, he stared at the quickly-fading puncture marks at the bends of his elbows and recalled the dream.

He was about seven and had been called – alone – to an office somewhere in the middle of the compound. When the guard let him in, he shut the door behind him, leaving Alec in the room alone.

It looked like a study, an inviting old-Victorian type of room with lush and extravagant decorations, and old wooden and leather furniture, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, all filled with science, ethics and philosophy books.

A small couch and matching armchair huddled around a little, circular wooden coffee table. The room seemed to be empty, but he knew better than to let his curiosity take over. Instead, he did what the guards told him to do and sat down (he chose the armchair) and prepared himself to be quiet.

He remembered why it had made such an impression on him: he'd never seen anything like it, especially not at that age. He'd seen a lot of gray. Classrooms, bunks, trails, sure, but not offices. It would be another five to ten years before he'd see an office.

Within five minutes, and older man he had never seen before entered the room. He had a decorative cane which he didn't use to walk – Alec could tell by how little weight he actually put on it, and an educated look about him. Alec figured it was his office in which they were meeting, and sat up straight.

"You're 494?" the man asked, his sandy voice rising gently.

"Yes, sir," he had said, his tiny voice sounding so confident.

The man walked to the table side and looked the boy over. "Yes," he seemed to whisper.

As far as Alec knew, this man was his superior, and he was taught to always follow orders, especially from his superiors.

"Did the guards place you in this chair?"

"No, sir," Alec answered, then started to stand, fearing he'd done something wrong.

The man pushed his hand down and toward Alec. "It's quite alright. Stay where you are."

Alec reseated himself and looked up to the man questioningly.

The man sat on the smaller couch and hooked his cane on the edge of the wooden table. "So do you know why I've asked you here?"

Alec tried not to shift in his seat. He had to maintain respectful posture. "No, sir."

"Well, I've asked you here to ask you a favor."

Alec leaned forward a little.

"But it's a secret favor. Top secret. Do you understand what that means?"

"Yes, sir."

"You can't tell your commanding officer, your unit, no one. I'm the only person you can talk to, and the only person you can trust."

"Yes, sir," came Alec's response.

"Good," he said, and produced a wallet-sized photo of a young girl.

_But then here's where I woke up_, Alec remembered, _to Max… in my arms._

He smiled to himself and took in a large breath while under the harsh spray, thankful for its massage-like streams.

"Medium Fella?" he heard Joshua's voice echo.

"Yeah Josh?"

"Dr. Shankar requesting you back for tests. Everyone really worried."

Alec turned off the water, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around himself. He padded toward the lockers and found Joshua with a small stack of his clothes, a pair of his boots, and a brown paper bag. "I know, buddy. I'm sorry I worried you." Alec patted Joshua on the shoulder and started to get dressed. "Thanks for bringing my clothes."

The scents from the bag wafted to him. From the smell of it, the bag's contents were a juicy cheeseburger and some greasy fries. "Is that a cheeseburger?"

Joshua looked up toward the ceiling as if remembering verbatim, "Hospital food sucks." He nodded to confirm that this was what he had heard.

Alec reached for the clothes and Joshua set the bag on the bench. He then turned around to give Alec some privacy as he dressed.

Alec thought about the dream. Something about it was nagging at him, something to suggest that it was more than just a dream. But what?

Manticore taught them some techniques to wake themselves up from dreams, but the tell-tale 'you're dreaming' signs were not present. He didn't jump locations, see anyone he knew now, or experience a difference in how time passes. And when he woke up, nothing about the dream seemed particularly 'weird.'

"That's it," he said aloud, zipping and buttoning his jeans.

"What's it?" Joshua asked.

_It wasn't a dream. It was a memory,_ he thought, staring past Joshua's turned frame toward the exit. He quickly deodorized himself and finished dressing as speedily as he could.

"Everyone really worried. Dr. Shankar requesting more tests," Joshua repeated.

Alec sat on the bench and slipped on his boots. He raised a leg to tie the laces. "Okay, you can turn around," he said. "And I know."

Joshua noticed Alec seemed to be in a rush. "Alec, don't leave."

Alec began to tie his other shoe. "Josh, buddy, I need a favor."

"Alec not well. Stay for tests. Dr. Shankar –"

"I know, they want to check me out, but I'm fine, I –"

"Max not awake yet," Joshua interrupted.

Alec paused for a moment as his face fell into a slight frown. He tried not to think about how right and how scary it felt to have Max sleeping next to him – touching him – voluntarily. _Must have been on my deathbed_, he reasoned.

His eyes lit up as he thought of something. "Josh, I have something really important to do."

Joshua looked confused. "Yeah, Alec need to get better. Rest."

"I don't have time for that," Alec said, opening the bag and taking out the cheeseburger.

"What's the plan?" Joshua asked as Alec took a big bite.

Through a muffled-by-cheeseburger bite, Alec said, "I need to go see someone about memory retrieval." _Because the girl in the photo is Max, and I have to help her._

Joshua, again, observed something in Alec's demeanor to back up his statement. This was very important.

"What do you need?"

Alec swallowed the bite and took another. "This is delicious, by the way," he said, smiling. "I just need a head start."

Joshua scanned the walls for exits. "You bounce."

"Thanks," Alec said and headed for the exit. "I just need to get to Logan's."

* * *

Alec jogged out of Terminal City and toward Crash.

_If I'm lucky, my bike's still there._

People watched him as he passed, no doubt because he was eating and jogging at the same time.

He kept replaying the portion of the dream he could remember in his head, in hopes that some part of it would jog his memory and it would all come flooding back.

The man was probably Sandeman. He'd seen the cane before – at Joshua's. Joshua continually called him 'Father,' and had complete and utter faith in the man.

The room, though; the room was strange. It was Manticore, but it was unlike any other room in the facility. It was warm and decorated. It wasn't an officer's room.

Alec turned a corner and picked up his speed. He finished his fries and threw the bag in the nearest trash just as Crash came into view.

And there was his bike.

"Hey baby, you miss me?" he asked, climbing on. Out of habit, he felt his pockets for his keys, but realized they were either in his old clothes or down in the bunker. He shrugged and prepared to hotwire his own cycle.

* * *

Joshua stood in front of Original Cindy and Dr. Shankar as if standing in front of a panel of judges, ready to receive his punishment.

"You did what?" Original Cindy asked, folding her arms in disappointment.

"Head start," he repeated matter-of-factly. "Something very important to do."

Dr. Shankar mirrored OC's stance. "Did he say where he was going?"

"Logan's."

Dr. Shankar's eyes grew wide, as did Original Cindy's. They looked to one another.

"He's gonna kill him!" Original Cindy said.

"No, Alec not a murderer," Joshua offered, as if OC didn't already know. He saved the '_anymore'_ part of his sentence in his mind.

"No, Doggy-Dog. Because Max transfused Alec, Alec now carries the retrovirus. If he touches him, Logan'll die."

Dr. Shankar turned toward the lobby area. "I'll try to give him a call," she said and hurried around the corner.

Joshua panicked and spread his arms. He started looking around. "Must find Alec."

* * *

Outside Logan's posh apartment, Alec paced, trying to calm himself down from the thought process he'd adopted on his way over.

Yes, he'd felt guilty for his role in the bunker's conception and creation, but Logan had some responsibility in their getting captured. More specifically, he had to answer for almost getting Max killed. Sure, Max was alive, but Alec knew she still wasn't out of the woods.

But that's not what he was here to talk about. He took a couple of deep breaths and tried to shake the tension from his shoulders. _Be calm,_ he told himself. _You need him. Or at least his resources._

Just as he'd calmed himself, he heard the unmistakable sound of a magazine sliding into its chamber, followed by someone clicking off the safety. A moment later, Logan's door swung open to reveal the cyber-journalist himself, pointing the business end of a .45 right between his eyes.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!"

"What are you doing here?" Logan asked, his arms and hands steady. He studied Alec's face for a moment, considering Alec's beard with some criticism.

_Obviously, Logan thinks I'm here to kill him, _he thought. _Which is not the case._ He let his arms hang free. He wasn't afraid of an _ordinary_. "I need a favor," Alec said. "And it has nothing to do with revenge." _At least not against you. At least not right now._

Logan did not falter in his stance. "You're not upset about the bad intel?" Logan asked, standing firm. When a super soldier transgenic killing machine shows up at your door unannounced, you don't let your guard down – not even for a second.

"Could have happened to anyone," he said, though there was no way in hell he actually believed that.

"How do I know you won't kill me?"

Alec blurred forward, waving Logan's gun-wielding arm down. He gained control of the piece, spun around, and leveled the gun between Mr. Eyes Only's corrective lenses. "Because if I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already."

Logan raised his hands defensively. This felt like a repeat to him. Back when Max had escaped and found him, Alec had been right behind her with a gun. Which to Logan, meant that Alec wasn't exactly keen on killing him then, either.

Alec released the butt of the gun, allowing it to dangle delicately on his finger. Mockingly. He offered the gun back to Logan, who, embarrassingly, accepted it.

"So what do you want?" Logan asked, letting Alec in.

_Well that's a fine attitude to have, _Alec thought. _Max is unconscious in the hospital and you open the door with a gun trained on my favorite head, and the first words out of your mouth are _not_ 'Hey, sorry about that, and how is Max doing, by the way?'_ Alec straightened his stance. "I need a favor," he repeated.

"Yeah, you mentioned that," Logan responded with a slight twinge of distaste, walking into his office and sitting the gun down on his desk.

_Okay, fine. Business only. _"I need your help to find someone. He's Manticore – probably a higher up in the Psy-Ops division."

Logan sat down in his ridiculously expensive leather office chair and swiveled around to the keyboard. "Okay, tell me about him," he said, placing his fingers on his keyboard.

Alec flashed back to when he'd last seen the man; it was through the glass from the Experiment Chair (or at least that's what he'd learned to call it when he was younger) into the Observation Room (also a young-Alec nickname). "Yeah, okay, he's about five-ten, probably about 40 years old at the time, maybe 210, graying black hair – early balding and these terrible jowls." Alec had mimicked his own cheeks sagging, but it didn't matter because Logan wasn't looking at him anyway.

So far, Logan hadn't typed much. "Do you remember anything else? Anything useful, like his name, distinguishing marks, tattoos, patches on his clothes… anything? You know these old Manticore guys are very hard to find. They're well-hidden. Like 'protected' hidden."

Alec, again, closed his eyes and pictured the man. "He's probably mid-fifties now. Nothing unusual about his stature. I couldn't even tell you if the man was right or left handed – he seemed to have calluses on both hands." Alec took a breath and traveled mentally up to the man's face, where the man's eyes came into view. "He has one green eye and one blue eye."

"Heterochromia?" Logan asked, amazed, and admittedly, trying to hold his intellect over Alec.

"Yeah."

"Partial?"

Alec pursed his lips as it became very clear to him what Logan was doing. Maybe Logan couldn't best him physically, but he thought he could best him mentally. "Complete." _Just let it go, _he told himself. _This isn't about which one of us is smarter, even though that's obviously me._

Logan typed more information as Alec hovered over his shoulder with a folded arm and a hand on his chin, pensive.

He knew he'd be able to find this guy faster if he could tap into Logan's network himself. "Hey, I could take a look if you've got something else to do," he offered.

"Yeah, uh, I can't really let you do that. Violates my confidentiality rules."

"What, are you a doctor?" he mused. When Logan said nothing further, Alec decided he couldn't just stand around and wait, reading over Logan's shoulder for hours on end.

Apparently, Logan also caught on to Alec's impatience, because after one minute, he said, "Why don't I call you when I find something?"

"Yeah, that sounds good. I have another lead to track anyway." Alec moved toward the door.

"Wait," Logan requested, getting to his feet and trying to catch up with the transgenic. "How's Max?"

Alec paused before facing Logan, partly to collect himself and make sure he didn't accidentally hurt his chances of Logan giving him what he wanted, and partly for dramatic effect. No harm in giving him a small shot of guilt. "Josh tells me she hasn't woken up yet."

Logan took this in with some sadness – and with what Alec thought looked a lot like some pointed anger. "Josh told you?"

"Yeah." He knew Logan was insinuating that Alec was a heartless bastard for not checking on Max himself, but he also knew Logan hadn't checked on her himself, which provided some kind of hypocrisy, he was certain.

"Ah," was all Logan could comfortably muster, eying the stoic transgenic suspiciously.

"The doc thinks she'll be fine," Alec offered, despite not knowing what Dr. Shankar said or how she feels about Max's condition.

Logan eased up a bit. "Well, I just wanted to say thanks for saving her life," he said.

But Logan didn't know it was Max who had saved Alec's life. He thought back to waking up with max in his arms and hinted at a smile.

Logan extended his hand. Alec guessed it was a sign of appreciation. He shook the man's hand and said, "Thanks for your help."

Logan shut the door as Alec walked toward the elevators.

* * *

It was three hours before Alec reached Burrard Inlet, and already he was beginning to worry about the dream/memory. He felt anxious at what it meant and why he couldn't remember the rest of it.

_It had to be the Psy-Ops guy, _he reasoned. _Must have adjusted my memory. _Instantly, he, again, hated that he could say or think stuff like that. _At least the ordinaries don't have their memories messed with by secret government divisions._

Not that he wanted to be an ordinary, though. Far from it. He just wanted not to be hunted for the rest of his genetically-engineered life. _Is that so much to ask?_

Alec rolled to a stop at a familiar mile marker and cut the engine. He checked the road before pushing his motorcycle into an alley near the harbor, and chuckled, wondering if this was even necessary, or if anyone would even bother checking for it.

He stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets nonchalantly as he stepped out onto the dock and made his way to the slip with the small houseboat bobbing on the water's surface.

_If that little girl is Max, what am I supposed to do to help her? And when? Doesn't make sense. Why me? And why when I was so young? And why am I remembering some of it now?_

_Is there something special about my DNA that makes me her protector all of the sudden? It's not like she can't take care of herself, so why task a soldier with it?_

Alec's boots treaded lightly on the dock as he approached the house boat.

_And who the hell is the old guy, if not Sandeman? If it is Sandeman, what else did he tell me? Why he made us? How I'm supposed to help that girl in the photo?_

He was so engrossed in thought that he failed to hear the masked men sneaking up behind him until it was too late and fifty thousand volts were surging through his body. _Fuck. _His vision went dark and he was fairly certain whoever it was had caught him on the way down.


	12. Day Two Above: Balancing the Scales

He must have been hanging for a long time, because the first thing Alec noticed when regaining consciousness was how badly his wrists hurt, and judging by the sting, how shallowly they had been blistered by his movement. Iron cuffs usually hurt. And the bastards who had tased him could probably care less that their captive was bleeding. They probably welcomed more.

He opened his eyes and lifted his head with some effort. He couldn't make out much in the darkness, but he could smell the mildew of old water, and the musty dankness of an untouched warehouse which hadn't breathed the fresh saltwater air of the ocean in years.

He followed his left arm's chain as it disappeared into the darkness almost two stories up; his right arm's chain deviated at a slightly different angle. He knew this meant the chains were bolted to the ceiling separately and he would most likely not be able to tear them down, especially because they were iron, and especially because he already felt weak from eight days underground and a couple of days unconscious. This basically sucked – that he had been captured again.

He tried to rise to his feet to relieve some of the pressure on his wrists, but within moments realized only his tiptoes were touching the floor.

_Well, fuck._

He could try swinging if anyone ever got close enough for him to reach, but without being able to use his hands, it would all be moot.

_At least it's dark and I can still see_.

As if reading his mind and being ill-content with his desires, out of the darkness, a harsh bulb lit up with its blinding brilliance. Moments after that, several flood lamps strategically placed in a circle around him, each lit up as well, and each so bright he couldn't see past them.

He hung there, quietly, and circled his hands up and around the chains, then grasped the rusty metal just a few inches up. At least while he was conscious he could relieve his wrists of the rubbing blisters.

Preparing for someone or something to make itself known, Alec stared into the intense bright white light, squinting against the offense.

"494," greeted a scruffy voice he'd never heard before. "Nice of you to join us."

Alec kept his face forward. There'd be no use in trying to see where the voice came from – he was blinded in every direction. So far, however, he knew that his captor knew his Manticore designation, which meant whoever it was knew what he was and what Manticore was; and he knew there were at least two people, because Scruffy just said 'we.' He waited for the man to continue.

"Why are you in Canada?" asked the voice.

Alec stared straightforward, planning on keeping his mouth shut. No good could come from telling them or not telling them. If they were going to kill him anyway, he'd rather they had nothing.

Except clearly, they had followed him. How else would they have known where he was?

"We have reason to believe you came here to meet with and old, well, let's call him an acquaintance."

_Oh shit, _he thought. _How could they have known? Unless he got caught, too, or maybe they could have tracked him here._

"You thought we didn't know about him," the voice mocked.

He had hoped they didn't know. It would only mean bad things if they had actually found him. He considered that the idea was a bluff, and again, kept his mouth shut.

"Fine, we'll play by your rules," the voice said.

Alec heard the heavy, metal sound of switches being thrown before all of the lights turned off. Utter brightness to utter darkness. Because of the transition between the bright light and complete darkness, Alec experienced temporary blindness as his eyes tried to adjust.

It was quiet for a long time before he finally heard something other than his own breathing. It sounded like a door opening, followed by the footsteps of a pair of heavy-booted people dragging a probably unconscious third. Probably a man, by the sound of the drag.

He was momentarily relieved that the other prisoner was not a woman, because that meant it wasn't Max.

Except it could be Max. She wasn't untouchable just because she was in TC's hospital. And maybe she'd woken up and gone after him. It was possible.

And she sometimes wore mannish boots.

Alec waited to hear their voices, but none of them spoke. _Smart, _he thought. _Keeping their enemy in darkness – figuratively and literally._ Apparently, he'd just have to wait until they revealed who the other person was, and who they were, and why they were doing what they were doing.

He heard the two booted people shackle the third up into some nearby chains and make their way back out the thick door. The other hanged man made no sounds, and Alec figured he must still be unconscious.

_Now, I wait._

* * *

It was several hours until the silence was broken by the figure hanging to his right. Two hours, twenty eight minutes to be exact, or at least Alec thought he had been exact. And the sound that broke the silence had been simple, so simple that Alec found his own reception of it to be humorously ridiculous. It had been a mere jerk of the stranger's leg. _Maybe it is waking itself up_, Alec pondered.

Shortly thereafter, though, he heard the man's breath, which itself was the most revealing part of it all.

It was Lydecker.

He coughed a few times as he came to, and tried to see around him.

Alec remained silent. If he was right, Lydecker would remain quiet and attempt to stand, to get himself free – anything – but he would do it as quietly as possible. Alec waited for the sounds.

First, he heard the metal links of the chains barely rubbing against one another. Probably trying the standing and relieving wrist pressure maneuvers at the same time.

Second came the breath of frustration – a breath which seemed to carry the idea of defeat.

And lastly, he heard the desperation grunt, the kind someone would only allow themselves to utter if they were completely alone.

Which meant Lydecker thought he was alone.

Alec cleared his throat. No use in embarrassing a man further. Or potentially embarrassing him.

Lydecker's voice rang out in echo as if through a microphone. "You may as well kill me."

Naturally, he had assumed the person in the same room or his captor wanted information and would threaten his life for it.

A loud metal sound reverberated throughout the space. Alec assumed the speakers had been switched back on and they would soon hear Scruffy.

"Who else is here?" Lydecker asked.

_That many enemies, huh?_ Alec thought. It would have been funny if they weren't both strung up by their wrists in some totally abandoned mildewy building. _You can only tell what kind of shit you're in by finding out who's been captured with you?_

Alec kept quiet once again. If he revealed who he was and Lydecker was stupid enough to talk to him as if they knew one another, then Scruffy and Co. might be able to ascertain his 'business in Canada.'

But Scruffy had other ideas, apparently, because he said, "Colonel Lydecker, you are a surprising addition to our little experiment. We bet you're full of knowledge about you fellow comrade."

_Great. Experiment._ Alec closed his eyes just as Scruffy or whoever was pulling the curtains shined those bigass spotlights on him again, illuminating him and giving Lydecker the information he'd just requested.

Lydecker remained quiet, and Alec couldn't see him past the lights, so he wasn't sure what, if anything, the colonel was giving away with his facial expressions.

None of that even mattered the moment fifty-thousand volts coursed through Alec's body. It thrashed uncontrollably, wrangling free his grip on the chains so he had no option but to hang by his wrists again.

Not to mention the pain. To him, it felt like a million tiny needles ticking their way through his veins. He gritted his teeth and tried to control the sounds he was making.

"Relax, soldier," Lydecker mumbled. "Let it pass."

Something about his voice felt calming. Alec let the pain melt over him, tried to control – mind over matter, right? – and felt the last of the surge dwindle like sizzling fajitas removed from the flames.

His whole body fell limp and hot. Within moments, a cooling sensation washed over him. It was as if someone was pouring water over his skin, trying to help him cool down.

He tried to open his eyes, but mind over matter wasn't working. He felt stuck in some weird mind-limbo.

"Not water," Lydecker said. It was the last thing Alec heard before he blacked out.

* * *

Original Cindy was in a full sprint down the 'hospital' corridor. She could hear Max calling out from another room and a couple of machines making loud noises. It was only when she was within about fifty feet of the room that she could distinguish what Max was saying.

"Let me go!" she heard Max scream. "I've got to get to him before he kills him!"

As Original Cindy rounded the corner and burst into the room, she saw Dr. Shankar and Joshua trying to steady Max, who seemed to be screaming out in her sedated state.

"What's going on?"

Dr. Shankar hurried across the room and pulled a syringe and small bottle from a wheeled table. She quickly extracted some of the fluid from the bottle and returned to Max.

"Help Joshua hold her still," Dr. Shankar ordered.

Original Cindy stepped forward and held Max's arm with one hand and leg with the other. "What's happening?"

Dr. Shankar injected Max with the solution and less than ten seconds passed as Max's limbs went limp. "I think she's having a vivid dream," she said. "Her consciousness is fighting to wake her up before her body is actually ready."

Original Cindy released Max's arm and leg and asked, "Tell me somethin', shugga. Why is Max acting like this when Alec was all 'rise and shine'?"

Dr. Shankar replaced the syringe on the table. "I don't know. They seem to work differently. Maybe she has a natural allergic reaction or a stronger reaction to whatever it is they were exposed to."

"Share blood, share reactions," Joshua said astutely.

* * *

A mild shock crashed like a wave over Alec's damp body. A muffled murmur attempted to pierce through him, as if some unknown battery was charging but wasn't quite full. He hadn't yet been able to open his eyes, but he had the strange sensation that it had all been a dream, and perhaps he was still dreaming.

"494, how did you feel, falling into your own trap?" asked Scruffy.

Alec remembered where he was now. Hanging. _But at least it's not the bunker._

"How did you escape it?"

_Like you don't already know,_ Alec thought. _Like you didn't have a camera trained on us down there, watching us panic and see how we responded to the situation. _He wondered if they had seen everything – if there was a tape out there that could confirm the things he wished were true, or at least show him the truth of what had happened. _That kiss…_

He remained quiet, and as the seconds passed, he became more aware of the state of his being. He felt the moisture in whatever it was they doused him with. He was tired, his muscles were sore from the constant jolting awake and asleep, and he had lost control of his synapses multiple times. The stimulus was too much. He wished he was numb.

He heard a whirring and the unmistakable grunt of someone being shocked. Heavy switches were thrown and suddenly, Alec was able to open his eyes.

Thirty feet diagonal from him hung Lydecker, shaking with the voltage. He gritted his teeth and attempted not to scream out in pain. From a distance, Alec could see Lydecker's wrist burns, bloodied and swollen face, and bruised skin.

_They're trying to use him to get me to talk,_ Alec realized. _But why? And didn't they know how well Manticore trained us all? We were trained not to break. We were trained to withstand the nastiest interrogation techniques, to protect themselves and the information they possessed. What good would answering their questions do?_

As if on cue, Scruffy said, "You were our greatest student, 494. You were always our greatest student. You never broke."

Alec felt it before he recognized it. He felt the joy in Scruffy's voice when he said 'our greatest student;' he felt that Scruffy was somehow proud of him, as if some part of Alec's success was due to this man, which could only be true if this man had tested Alec before. And he felt that this man had been around for quite some time.

And that meant he could only be one person.

Alec struggled to look around, to find any light source around the perimeter which might give away the man's location, so that he could use his inherent abilities to confirm the identity of the man.

"Ah ah ah," sang the man. Alec could only imagine the man was wagging his old, decrepit finger, indicating that Alec shouldn't do what he was doing. "We're not ready," he added.

"I helped them," Lydecker's voice cracked into the empty space. "I found them," he said.

If he had the energy, Alec's eyes would have widened in surprise. _Why is he talking? He should be silent. He shouldn't talk to them. _ He considered the idea that maybe Lydecker was trying to save him from the torture, trying to help him out, but wondered why he would do that. _Am I in such bad shape that he feels this is the only thing saving my life?_

The moment he thought it, he realized how they had been saved. Joshua or Original Cindy or both had contacted Lydecker somehow, and Lydecker had come out of hiding – putting his life on the line – to get them out of that bunker. The man responsible for teaching his unit how to withstand torture had gone out of his way to help another. It was something Lydecker wouldn't have done unless he had a reason – a really good reason.

Another fifty-thousand volts pushed through Alec's veins, and he fell into the deep darkness.

* * *

"Cindy?" asked a weakened Max, letting her eyelids drift open groggily. When they were open, she looked into the big brown pools of Original Cindy's eyes, eyes which were simultaneously bursting into tears.

"Max?" she said excitedly.

"Hi," Max said.

Original Cindy looked over her shoulder and shouted, "She's awake!" When she turned back, she had a huge smile and a few tears were streaming down her face. "Girl, you don't know how glad I am to hear you!"

Max assessed herself. Same hospital gown, same grimy feeling over her body, same automatic worry. "Where's Alec?"

Original Cindy's smile fell a little at the corners. "We don't know. He woke up hours ago and Joshua let him sneak out."

Dr. Shankar turned the corner and came into the room with Joshua in tow.

"Hey little fella," Joshua greeted. His eyes showed gratitude that she was finally conscious.

"Hey big fella," Max responded with a slight smile.

"Alright, let's check you out," Dr. Shankar said, putting the stethoscope to her ears and preparing the metal chest piece.

Max slowly sat up and looked to Original Cindy. "What do you mean Joshua let him sneak out?"

Joshua looked down, ashamed. "Joshua gave Alec head start," he said. "Sorry."

The doctor slipped the cold disc onto Max's back and listened.

"No, that's not your fault, big fella," Max said. "Did he say where he was going?"

"Boo, you need to calm down and rest. You've been out for days and because of the transfusion, you're weaker."

Original Cindy and Dr. Shankar shared a worried look before Dr. Shankar agreed. "She's right, Max. You've been through quite a bit, and you saved Alec's life – but at a price."

Max hadn't missed their attempted mental telepathy. "What happened to him?"

Original Cindy sighed.

"You really need to stay in bed and not exert yourself." The doctor placed the chest piece on the front of her gown, over her heart. "Deep breath," she ordered.

Max took a breath, but instead of breathing out normally, she spoke. "What's for me to exert myself about? You would only say that if there was some reason I needed to exert myself, and if something has happened to Alec…"

"Heart sounds good," the doctor said, removing the chest piece and her eartips.

"Nothing's happened to him," Original Cindy said. "We just don't know where he is."

"He can't be missing," Max pushed. "Where did he go, Joshua?"

Joshua was hesitant to answer. Eventually, though, he understood Max was going to lose control if someone didn't start giving her answers. "Something important to do. At Logan's."

Max's eyes widened and she felt some adrenaline begin to pump through her. "He can't do that," she said, looking to Original Cindy for confirmation. "He can't do that. He has my blood. Does he know he has my blood? Does he know he carries the virus?" She checked Dr. Shankar's face for an answer.

"We don't know," Dr. Shankar said.

Immediately, Max swung her legs around the bed and began peeling the tape up which had held the IV needle in place.

"Please listen to me," the doctor said. "You are in a weakened state and can't take too much stress right now."

"Did anyone call Logan?" Max asked. "Did anyone warn him?"

Original Cindy stood up. "We tried, girl, he didn't answer."

"You gotta take me there," Max said. "I gotta go talk to him." Max pulled the needle out of her hand and stood up.

* * *

Alec woke up again, dizzy this time, as if he had been at sea for weeks, and without water. When his eyes were open, or at least when he thought his eyes were open, he was too dizzy to focus on anything. He purposefully kept them shut.

"Ah, 494, welcome back."

From behind his eyelids, Alec could tell the lights were all pointed at him again.

"You know why we brought you here," the gravelly voice said.

_No fucking clue,_ he thought. Alec remained quiet. He heard some footsteps approach – footsteps of a medium-built person, maybe a man. He wanted to open his eyes, but whenever he tried, he felt like the room was spinning faster than his brain could focus.

He felt a needle prick his side and something warm flow into his body. _What the fuck?_ He wondered if they would ever tell him what they were doing.

"You're here because you're the one," Scruffy revealed.

Mere seconds passed and he began to convulse. Lydecker's voice echoed in his head.

_Let it pass. Let it pass._

* * *

Original Cindy knocked on Logan's door and waited with a very impatient Max.

"We should just break down the door," Max said.

"Only if he doesn't answer," OC said.

Max folded her arms. Original Cindy had brought her a pair of pants, a long sleeve shirt, some boots, and a jacket – and it was all black. She felt like a shadow of her former self, weakly standing by while things happened all around her. "Fuck that," she said and kicked at the door handle.

The door swung open to reveal a startled Logan, who had backed up a few steps and was now shocked to be staring at Max. "You're awake!" he said excitedly, but also unsure of what was about to happen.

Max flashed from happy to see that Logan wasn't dead to panic that Alec hadn't gone where he said he would go and was somewhere out there, missing.

Max stepped into the entryway. "Where's Alec?"

Confused, Logan took a step toward Max. "I don't know, but I have something really important to tell you."

Max took an unconscious step back. "We gotta find him," she said. "He's missing. Did he come here?"

Logan looked to Original Cindy.

"He woke up a few hours ago and told Joshua he was coming here," OC stated.

Logan nodded. "Yeah, he was here. He asked me to look into something for him, and said he had a lead to follow and left."

Out of the corner of her eye, Max saw Logan's phone on the edge of the kitchen counter. "We've been calling, why haven't you answered?"

Logan couldn't comprehend Max's questions. "Sorry, I didn't know I needed to take it with me at all times on the off chance you might call me."

"Well, we did."

Logan deflated and tried to smile. "Sorry, but I was kind of busy, and I have something to tell you."

"Can it wait? I gotta find Alec. He's probably gotten himself into trouble, and he can't take more stress right now. Did he say where he was going?"

Logan took another deep breath. "No, he just said he had a lead."

"What was he looking for?"

"I don't know, some Manticore guy. The informant net is searching the database." Logan gestured toward his office, where, through the doorjamb, they could see the computer screen alive with activity.

Max motioned to go to the office, but Logan stepped in front of her. "Will you please come into the living room and sit down so we can talk?"

"Now's not the time," Max said. "I need more information."

"Some guy with Manticore who used to work in the PsyOps division. Some old guy with one blue eye and one green eye."

Max flashed back to the only man she'd ever seen who had that condition. He was one of the men who experimented on her, one of the doctors. She was instantly transported back to that time, and a few tears welled up in her eyes. "And a saggy face," Max said.

"What's wrong?" Original Cindy asked, noting how quickly Max's demeanor had changed. She stepped up behind Max and put a careful hand on her shoulder.

"Nothing," Max said, pushing the memories down. "I know who he's looking for. Come on, let's go."

As Max turned to leave, Logan reached out and grabbed her by the hand. Instinctively, she yanked her hand away and turned back with huge, worried eyes.

_He didn't just touch me. He didn't just touch me. He knows. He knows he can't touch me. Why did he do that? He didn't do that. _Max's mind filled with flash images of Logan's descent to death.

Original Cindy's mouth dropped open out of shock.

"That's what I'm trying to tell you," Logan said. He reached for her hand again, and this time, she successfully avoided touching him.

"You got a death wish?" Original Cindy said. "Do like your kindergarten teacher said and keep your hands to yourself."

"No, that's what I'm trying to tell you," he repeated. "I found the cure." He reached for her with both hands and placed them on either side of hers.

She pulled her hand out from between his, and he immediately held his hand out toward her face, ready to cup her cheek. "I found the cure. We can touch again," he said, moving his hand up.

For Max, this was all happening in slow motion. Logan had just spoken the words she'd longed to hear – they'd both longed to hear – for months, and all she could think about was finding Alec. He was out there somewhere, missing, maybe captured, maybe being tortured, because that was Jowls' (as she used to call him) job.

Before Logan could touch her cheek, she turned to leave. "I gotta find Alec."


	13. Day Three Above: In a New Light

Logan stepped forward to try to grab her arm again, to try to stop her from walking away from this very important news. He didn't understand how she kept evading his touch. Was it from the months upon months of avoiding his skin, months which reinforced the action, turning it into a habit? He cursed himself mentally for all those small touches he never reached out to do, long before her recapture, long before the junkyard.

"Max, did you actually hear what I said? I found the cure!" He wondered if she actually understood that this meant they could be together.

Original Cindy followed Max back out into the hall, dimly lit from the brass wall sconces. She was determined to figure out how she could help her friend, but Max was steadfastly moving toward the sleek gray doors of the elevator. For just a fleeting moment, she felt like that hallway, as if she was missing something that a brighter light would have illuminated.

"So I guess they told you about Lydecker?" Logan called after her. If he couldn't reach her with his hands, maybe he could reach her with his words. It was what he was good at, right? Reaching people, even when they didn't want to be reached. Hacking into their attention and giving them the truth.

Turning to face Logan, Original Cindy unconsciously balled her fist. "Boy, you are ridin' my last nerve, and I'm about a minute from buckin' yo' ass." OC narrowed her eyes at Logan. He needed to understand that his selfishness would never outweigh Max's duty to help her own kind.

Max spun and a small spark of betrayal crossed her face. "What about Lydecker?" she asked her friend. If Lydecker was involved in all this shit, she wasn't sure she could take it all at once. If Lydecker was involved, Alec would surely be dead. Or worse – re-indoctrinated at another Manticore facility. Her heart contracted in worry over what OC might say. How had she betrayed her?

Logan stood a bit taller, feeling like he finally had some ammunition which might get her to stay for just a moment longer. "Lydecker's the one who found you," he divulged, despite Cindy's murderous glare. He expected Max to get angry. It was something he had seen developed over time – her ability to lose her cool with uber-personal issues. Her blood would boil, from her toes all the way to her mouth, where it would spill out like hot lava, burning everything her quick mind might see as an obstacle to protecting herself. He thought OC, Joshua, hell, anyone who was involved in Lydecker's joining up would soon feel the wrath of Max, but she stared almost blankly back at him.

"Is that true?" she asked Original Cindy.

OC took a breath. "I was gonna wait until we found Alec to drop the 411; thought you may not need the additional stress." She sent a completely overt sneer at Logan. "But since I don't seem to have a choice, I'll just lay it out for you. When you didn't come home that second night, I called Joshua. Between us, we figured something happened, but no one could find you, and he checked around and no one else could find Alec. And there was no trace of you anywhere. So Joshua manned up and reached out. Two days later, he and Lydecker were off to Texas to find you."

"You met with Lydecker?" she asked, worriedly, suddenly searching the bare parts of her friend's skin for bruises or cuts. Anything that might prove Lydecker had harmed her. But there was nothing.

Shaking her head, OC stared into her friend's eyes. "No, Joshua wouldn't let me."

Relieved, Max silently thanked Joshua, took the information in, and stared past her friend and into the distance the rich-colored wallpaper offered. By deduction, and by the simple fact she wasn't currently confined in a Manticore facility or dead in some underground bunker, she assumed Lydecker had no intention of recapturing her or Alec. _But why not?_

"I'm sorry," Original Cindy said, her big eyes pleading. "It was our only lead, and Joshua followed it to bring you home."

Max bit back her tears. "We gotta go," she said, temporarily resigning herself of the conversation. "We gotta find Alec. He could be dying."

With surprise hurt crossing over the journalist's face, Logan felt the sudden pang of jealousy. Yes, Max was constantly putting her ass on the line for the annoying X5, but he had just laid the big news on her, the opportunity for which they had been waiting so long, and she hadn't responded to it in the least. He wondered if he had deluded himself for the past few months – had this been just as important to her as it had been to him?

But what did he expect? He had to eventually come to terms with the fact that when someone's life was on the line, Manticore Max, Soldier Max, would take over until the threat of harm was eliminated.

Logan softened and tried to rid himself of the selfish thoughts. He would be foolish to think she would act any other way if Joshua or Original Cindy or any one of the nameless Manticoreans she freed had gone missing. As much as he didn't really like Alec, he knew Max trusted him, and that he had come through for her on more than one occasion. Logan just wasn't sure if Alec was a threat to either of them.

He had already waited a long time just to be able to touch her again, and he could wait a little while longer.

"Max, you want me to call you if my search produces results?"

She considered saying 'no.' Logan was acting like the cure was more important than Alec's life. It wasn't when Alec's head was about to be blown off, and it wasn't now. Plus, if his intel that landed them in the underground hell was bad, then his informant net may have been compromised, and any current intel might have been tampered with.

But if it was a fluke, then any information at all could get her closer to Alec. "Yes," she said. "Come on, Original Cindy. You gotta get me to my baby."

Logan almost smiled in disbelief. _Her baby? Alec's her baby now?_

"It's probably still at Crash," her friend said.

Logan breathed a sigh of relief. Obviously, they were talking about her motorcycle. "Max," he began.

"She knows," OC said, waving him off as they stepped into the elevator.

* * *

On the drive to Crash, Original Cindy was animatedly going on a tirade about Logan's lack of respect for Alec, which normally wouldn't upset Max, except she was gesturing frequently and it was raining

"I mean, the man couldn't give a rat's ass about Alec, despite the proof of – how many Eyes Only missions has Alec gone on with you?"

"I'm not sure."

"Countless missions," she started again, "and still, that man has only two things on his mind: his computer, and monopolizing your time."

"Cin, it's not like he-"

"Don't try to defend him, girl," OC said, wagging a finger at Max. "He doesn't care about your safety. Not once has he offered to reach out to some other spy of his for these missions-"

"He wouldn't want to insult me by suggesting I can't cut it."

"Uh uh, girl. He's greedy, and he treats you like you're his personal little spy toy that he can play with whenever he wants. How long has it been since he's found new information for your unit and on Manticore?"

Max sat back, deflated. The last time he was looking out for Max's causes, he'd sent them to the bunker. She didn't want to blame him. Truly, she had no idea those Familiar freaks knew about Eyes Only or the informant net. It was her own fault for not recognizing it sooner.

"I know that look, boo," OC said, tearing her eyes from the road momentarily. "And it is not your fault."

Max heaved a big breath.

OC followed suit. "I know," she said, calming a bit. "I just worry, you know? I never know at the start of the day whether my girl's gonna come home at the end of it."

If she was trying to make Max feel guilty, she was succeeding.

"Don't get me wrong, shugga. I knew the risks when I renewed the lease. I just don't think you understand how he's taking advantage of you."

Max almost scoffed.

* * *

A loud buzzing erupted as Alec came to, sweating profusely through his clothes, and feeling as though he'd been buried under a sopping wet blanket of lead. He shivered and squinted against the bright lights attempting to force themselves into his sockets. _Christ, these guys really know how to treat a guy._

The last thing he remembered was Scruffy telling him he was the one. But what the hell did that even mean? And then whatever was in the needle sent him to Shakesville and those crude cuffs at his wrists burned against the blisters more. He adjusted his wrists back, gripping the chains above his tired arms.

The chains closest to his moved slightly. "You awake, soldier?" Lydecker asked.

Alec turned his head heavily to try to see the man.

"I'll take that as a yes. Alec, right?"

He racked his brain, trying to remember if Lydecker had ever heard the name Max had given him. His body was so tired, that even if he wanted to speak, he couldn't. He tried to swallow, but it seemed all the moisture in his body had already come out as sweat.

"I think I know what they're doing," Lydecker divulged in a small mumble.

A spark. A spark of hope burst in his mind as he thought about being 'the one,' whatever that meant. If they wanted him for something, there was a good chance he could get out of there alive. He just had to wait it out; he had to wait for an opportunity to present itself, and then be strong enough to take advantage of the opportunity.

"They sedated you," Lydecker revealed. "It has to be. That's why your muscles feel so heavy."

Even as Lydecker said it, Alec felt his body weighing down heavier. He momentarily worried that if he slipped into unconsciousness again, he might lose his grip on the chains, and lose the skin on his hands as his weight pulled his hands through the cuffs.

"They always have to break it down before they can rebuild it." Lydecker's voice was a mixture of reassurance and shamelessness.

Alec realized the 'it' to which Lydecker was referring was his body. He tried to open his eyes, but his lids were so heavy. Why would they need to break his body down? And how were they planning on rebuilding it? He hoped it wasn't with biotech. He didn't want to end up like those steelheads, or like Max's brother Zack.

Something about Lydecker's words haunted his mind, though. _Always._ He had said they always have to break it down. Wearily, he thought that perhaps the 'always' was a clue to some experiment Manticore conducted. No matter how far away he got from them, he could never forget that he was one of their experiments. The word tasted bitter in his mouth and he made a face, unable to salivate enough to try to spit it out.

Lydecker's breath increased when they both heard the heavy doors open and a pair of boots stomp in. It was a longer walk, which clued Alec in to the fact that this warehouse must be pretty big, and he must be somewhere in the middle of it. Before he could manage to lift his lids, he felt a prick at his side and an itchy liquid pass into his body.

He wanted to scratch. Whatever the substance was, it made his veins itch. He desperately tried to move his arms and legs, but the sedation was holding. He gritted his teeth. _Mind over matter,_ he reminded himself. He hung still and tried to meditate that itchy feeling away.

After a few minutes, every vein the substance traveled through started to burn. He felt like his whole body was on fire – from the inside out. _What the hell is this shit?_ he wondered, tonguing the skin behind his teeth and focusing on his control over his being.

Then, just as quickly as it had begun, the burning sensation stopped. Mentally, Alec relaxed, but felt his body fall limp again.

_Dammit!_ He tilted his head upward and managed to open his eyes in a squint against the bright lights. He could see the cuffs digging into his skin again. But he couldn't feel it.

At first, he was relieved that he didn't feel the burning pain of his blisters, but that relief washed away when he realized he couldn't feel anything. He couldn't feel his arms, though he knew they should ache from being held up for so long. He couldn't feel his tongue, which, moments ago, had probed at his teeth, but was now most likely lying lazily in the cradle of his jaw, motionless.

His vision exploded into a thousand bright sparks as he recognized that he couldn't feel the electricity blowing through his body.

* * *

After a quick goodbye to OC, and a promise she would be careful, and a second promise she would be coming home, and a third promise she would be bringing Alec with her, Max climbed onto her Ninja and turned over the ignition. She needed to see Joshua.

On her drive back to the makeshift TC hospital, an unbidden flash of memory coursed through her mind, reminding her when the last time was that she had seen Jowls.

Her chest tightened as every time she blinked, she saw his one green eye and one blue eye peeking up at her from between her legs. Just as she had at the time, a small group of tears pricked at her eyes and threatened to escape out into the world, proving her fear, putting it on display for all to see.

Max brought her knuckle up to her eye and wiped the tears out toward her temple. Maybe in the rain, no one could tell she was crying. She looked down on her behavior as if ashamed and tried to will the tears away – at least while she was driving.

Jowls' guards had restrained her, strapped her into the chair, and she had sat there, immobile. She had cried out when she felt those metal barbs inside of her. Though her head was stationary, her vision had stretched down to the expressionless eyes which bobbed up and down her vision from between her thighs.

Max grinded her teeth and had the urge to press her legs together, as if doing that now might make what happened then stop. But her Ninja hummed and rumbled between her legs, reminding her of its reliability, reminding her that she had gotten out, reminding her that she was in control.

But Jowls had completed his work. His eyes had shined with satisfaction of a job well-done. And Max had closed herself off, pretending it wasn't her in the chair, trying desperately to detach herself from the memory.

When she reached the TC hospital, she was sobbing freely, her tears streaking down her jacket, mixing with the rain.

* * *

"Wake up, Alec," Lydecker said.

Alec wished he would stop calling him by name. If they were going to be stuck, hung in this musty place together, he wished Lydecker would revert back to calling him by his designation.

"Wake up, 494," Lydecker said, as if reading his thoughts.

Alec tried to open his eyes, but he wasn't sure they were actually open. It was utter darkness again, and he could feel the burns on his wrist and the strange sense of acidic bile at the back of his throat. _Did I throw up? _he wondered.

"Give me a sign," Lydecker ordered.

_He can't see either. Too dark. He has something to tell me and he wants to make sure I can hear him. _

Alec circled his hands around the chains again and relieved some of the pressure on his wrists. Hopefully, the clinking links was enough of an answer for him, because Alec wasn't planning on giving them a damn thing. Not even his voice. He could never break, not if he had any hope of helping Max. Of protecting her.

"Okay. They are old Manticore," Lydecker started, trying to keep his voice low. Neither captive knew if anyone could hear, but in case the room or their bodies weren't bugged, he'd have to be quiet and political. "They are testing you. Do you know what for?"

It sounded more like a statement than a question.

_No fucking clue,_ Alec thought. He remembered part of his dream. The picture… _Something to do with Max, maybe? _He just wasn't sure. And there was no point in speculating. Answering any of Lydecker's questions would ensure some form of action on behalf of their captors, and he didn't have a plan, yet.

"I told you not to contact me unless it was an emergency," Lydecker admonished.

_Fuck! Why did you just say that?_ Alec was screaming at him, but only mentally. He was going to give them the information they needed to crucify them. Why would he invite certain death?

A soft motor hummed, silencing them both. Within moments, Alec and Lydecker were breathing gaseous elements. Even though Alec could hold his breath for well over ten minutes, it would be useless in his current state to attempt to outlast this gas.

Immediately, Lydecker started to convulse. Alec could hear it – his chains were rattling, the links clanking against one another as the sound of Lydecker's body flailing about whooshed in the air. He waited for his own body to mimic Lydecker's movement, but the seizure never came. He just hung there, waiting.

Within two minutes, Lydecker fell unconscious and hung limply. Alec detected his breathing, but now he was left alone with his thoughts, once again.

_Was this a test for Lydecker? Why didn't I have a reaction? Because I'm an X5? Is it a bio-warfare agent? _

He was well on his way to another thought when his mouth started sweating. His stomach cramped and a surge of vomit ejected itself from his mouth. Part of it fell on his clothes, but most of it projected past his hanging body and onto the floor. He couldn't see any of its colors. He spat out a little of what he thought was left in his mouth and tried to prepare himself for the lingering taste of disgust.

It was a taste which never came.

Worried he might have lost his sense of taste, Alec bit his inner cheek hard. It should have been enough to draw blood. When he was convinced that the rough flesh next to his teeth was ripped and punctured enough, he tongued the tender part and tasted no copper. He tried to smell his breath, but all was to no avail. His sense of smell and taste were both gone.

* * *

Max found Joshua in the corridor on the first floor, sulking. He looked like a lost and lonely puppy. Two of his closest friends had been through so much, and though he was so grateful they were both alive, he couldn't help but feel partially responsible for what was happening now. "Logan okay?" he asked. "Alec hurt him?"

Max pursed her lips and sat down next to Joshua in one of the lobby chairs in the hallway. "Logan's fine. Alec didn't hurt him – but he's missing."

Joshua frowned, his lower lip sagging on both sides, worried he had disappointed Max. "Sorry, Max. Joshua help find Alec."

"Relax, big fella," Max started, recognizing sorrow and gratitude in her canine-enhanced friend's voice. "I know what happened. That's why I'm here."

Joshua leaned away from Max. She knew he had gone to Lydecker. "Max Joshua's friend. Max understand Joshua. Joshua… had no choice," he finished, looking down.

"I know," she said, squeezing his hand gently. "I need you to tell me how you found Lydecker."

* * *

Switches were thrown again as two circles of bright lights illuminated the darkness.

Immediately, Alec looked to Lydecker. Surrounded by his own set of blaringly bright lights, he looked like an archangel. With light all around him, but his head hanging low and in shadow, the image was almost poetic. And appropriate.

The heavy doors opened and two figures entered the room. One was the stomping-boot-guy, but the other walked gingerly, as if he was old or hurt. Maybe both.

"494," Scruffy voiced.

This time, Scruffy's voice was not being projected over a PA-type system. It was a few feet in front of him. Since he stood behind the circle of lights all pointed at Alec, Alec couldn't see him.

"We are so happy with your performance this far. We knew you were the one."

Alec pressed his lips together, certain that Scruffy would try to make him talk, try to make him reveal everything so Manticore could intercede and take back their property, redesign him not to go AWOL.

"We have questions, 494," Scruffy said vaguely. "We know you met with Sandeman. Many years ago." His voice was like gravel, and Alec imagined his jowls hanging heavily and lazily to the sides of his chin, not dissimilar to how Alec, himself, was hanging. "We believe he told you something, and we want to know what it is."

Alec twitched, remembering the way Scruffy's face moved behind the glass which looked into the experiment room.

"You remember me," Scruffy said with an heir of pride and, unironically, observation. He stepped into the circle at the behest of Boot-Stomp, waving away the guard's concern, and let the light hit him.

Alec noted the slight differences in the man's appearance. It had been over ten years, but there were few changes. His eyes were further sunken, and a little more of his hair was gone, but other than that, it all seemed the same. He even wore almost the same thing – slacks, dress shirt, a lab coat and a tie. _A fucking tie. This was still his job, _Alec 's clothes hung loosely on his frame and he waited for Alec to finish judging how the years had treated him.

"Does it match your memory?" Scruffy asked, folding his hands in front of him calmly. He paced a few strides toward the part of the circle closest to Lydecker. He gave the unconscious colonel a disgusted grimace which jiggled the saggy skin at his cheeks.

"What did Sandeman tell you?" the elder man questioned, returning his stare to Alec's hanging form. "Did he tell you the whole thing?"

_I don't remember, _Alec thought, keeping his lips shut.

Scruffy scowled. "You never broke," he said, looking up and to the left. "I remember that you never broke, but it would be better if you told us what we want to know. Because," he trailed, pacing around Alec to the other side of the circle, "it would be better that you not waste our time."

Alec turned his head toward Scruffy. He had a feeling that Scruffy was about to reveal something important. Something bad.

"If you don't start talking," Scruffy threatened, raising an open palm into the darkness at Alec's left, "then you will end up like her."

Alec jerked his head left and tried to see past his arm. Silently, he pleaded that they hadn't caught Max. Because he knew there were no other heartbeats in the room.

A third set of circled lights lit up, revealing a limp, lifeless body hanging from shackles.

Alec's eyes widened.

Her frame was the same, but it wasn't her. Right? It wasn't her, because she was wearing the same black boots Max wore, and she was dressed in tight black jeans and a loose blue top, cut open to reveal her back, which itself was covered in dozens of multi-length cuts, welts, bruises. He caught a glimpse of her barcode and panicked.

Scruffy pointed one finger in the air and circled it, signaling to someone in the darkness. Boot-Stomp hurried through the darkness and placed both hands at the hanging legs of the body.

"Get your fucking hands off her!" Alec yelled, his voice uncontrollable. He couldn't bear the thought of anyone touching Max.

Boot-Stomp twisted the body toward Alec, and he saw her face in a shadow.

Max's face. His breaths increased until he imagined he was hyperventilating, and he wanted to shout at them to prove that it was Max, to prove that it was her hanging there next to him. But he had seen her barcode, and he knew it was her. Tears threatened to well up in his eyes. _It's not fair! We haven't even had a chance…_

Boot-Stomp held her in place with one arm circled at her legs, and reached up to lift her chin. Her face now lit, Alec felt the bile rising in his throat again.

"Move your hand or lose it," Alec said, grinding his teeth. He realized there wasn't much he could do while being restrained, but he vowed to kill that guard as soon as he was free of the shackles.

But then he noticed something was wrong. Her hair. It was kind of wavy. Max's hair wasn't wavy. It was straight.

When the guard finally released her and she swung back into place, her head fell forward and her hair parted enough for Alec to see her barcode again. It was scarred and looked ragged, as if it had been a skin graft which wasn't healing properly.

_Fuck. It's Sam._

Alec felt relieved it wasn't Max, then guilty for feeling relieved, then angry for what Sam had gone through in the guise of Max. He should have known it wasn't Max. Sam didn't smell like cherries and vanilla and saltiness.

_Who the hell would graft Max's barcode onto her twin? _

"We know 452's not the one," Scruffy said, turning to face Alec and walking in front of him. "So we just have one more test, and it's going to prove that you are."

Scruffy motioned to the doors from which he entered. One more guard walked quietly toward them, little footsteps connecting lightly with the ground. The guard stepped into Alec's circle, revealing her small frame, and simultaneously revealing the big snake she was handling.

"So what do you say, 494? You up for one last test?" Scruffy managed.

The guard shook the snake, holding it by the jaw, until it seemed well-aggravated. The snake hissed loudly and nearly jumped out of the woman's hands, latching itself to his leg.

"Fuck you," Alec gruffed as the snake venom seeped into his veins.

The woman wedged some kind of steel glove between the snake's jaws and wiggled its fangs out of Alec's thigh. She carried the snake out of the room.

Scruffy's chuckle, coupled with nausea, fatigue, and convulsions, ushered Alec back into the darkness.


	14. Day Four Above: Idle as a Painted Ship

A/N: The title 'Idle as a Painted Ship' comes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's _Rime of the Ancient Mariner_

* * *

Max replaced the gas can in the outside storage area and locked it up. Turning back to Joshua, Dix and Mole, she said, "Keep the home fires burning," and slid one leg over her motorcycle.

As she started the engine, Mole eyed her with some respect – for her possibly intentional pun on their beloved home base. "Bring the Princess back," he grumbled, trying to keep the end of his cigar pinched between his jaws.

_That's the whole goddamned point,_ Max thought, pulling her helmet over her head.

"Careful, Little Fella," Joshua said.

"Call if you need assistance," Dix offered. "You know, anything hacked, or blueprints, or whatever…"

For the second time, Joshua's knowledge was going to save them. Max smiled, her face hidden by the helmet, and drove out of TC, headed toward Canada. She tried to prepare herself for what she might find and what she might say. To Lydecker. To Alec.

The sky was overcast and everything around her seemed coated in shades of gray. She knew there would be rain soon, but until then, the surroundings would remain unmoving and lifeless, stuck between dualities.

* * *

He felt the sensation of being gently rocked and let tiny slits of light into his vision. The rays shined only long enough for Alec to recognize he wasn't hanging from chains and the light wasn't coming from a ring of flood lamps in an otherwise darkened warehouse.

Lydecker wasn't hanging next to him. Sam wasn't hanging next to him. Scruffy wasn't interrogating him. Max was nowhere in sight.

It was oddly quiet as he passed out.

* * *

The three hours it took Max to get to Burrard Inlet seemed like the three longest hours of her anxiety-filled, genetically-enhanced life. She could only think of how messed up this whole situation really was.

_And Alec went off on his own. Again. Doesn't he get it? He could die out here._

Max tried to brush it off, but the more she thought about it, the more worried she became. She couldn't fathom what could possess him to leave the 'hospital.' Wasn't his own survival more important to him than anything else?

She pulled off the road and cased the space near the harbor. She found what seemed to be an empty alleyway and cut her engine, rolling the motorcycle quietly into it. She turned a slight corner, preparing to hide her cycle behind a graffitied, gray dumpster, and was greeted by another motorcycle: Alec's.

Max smiled, thanking the Blue Lady or whoever would take the credit that she had gone the right direction when she followed her instincts (and Joshua's directions). If his motorcycle was here, he was probably nearby. _Right?_

She tried not to get her hopes up in case of the worst-case scenario, but they hadn't talked since they 'went to sleep' in the bunker. _Was that four days ago?_ She was floored by all that had happened in the span of twelve days. Would this experience be one of those experiences that changed her life?

For a moment while she disguised her Ninja, she thought back to their time underground. It almost sickened her that Lydecker probably saw her huddled up next to Alec. Probably felt some kind of pride because they were breeding partners. Their star pupil and rogue agent getting busy on company time.

Then again, maybe there was a camera trained on them, which means many more 'scenes' from down there were available to the viewing 'public.' Despite the possibility, Max actually found herself wishing for time alone with Alec – away from everyone and everything – Jam Pony, bosses, Logan, friends, hoverdrones and other electronic devices, time when they were both lucid.

Convinced their bikes would go unnoticed, Max turned and headed out of the alley.

"All roads lead to Rome, right?" she muttered to herself, watching the industrial area's pathways veer left and right before ending at the docks.

She heard and saw nothing out of the ordinary, and that was the problem. Only people and noise and movement would prove something was happening. She felt as if she was out on a calm sea, no oars or wind-caught sails to push her on.

Out of all the slips at the marina, there were only two vessels bobbing at the surface. The vision of it mentally sent Max back into the barren bunker, staring at Alec's Adam's apple as he swallowed, feeling it against her lips as she kissed it.

She doubted Alec knew anyone whose yacht would be named 'Brie's Breeze,' nor the company who claimed the fishing boat 'Sea No Evil,' but she snooped nearer anyway on the off chance any of it was a front.

In case of alerting anyone who might not know about her presence, she remained silent as she approached Brie's Breeze. It was an old, dilapidated thing with a sunbleached canopy barely hanging on. There was enough space for an interior sleeping area, but she didn't need to climb aboard to see no one was there; it had lost its door long ago.

Skipping over the remainder of Brie's Breeze, Max cased the exterior of Sea No Evil, the blue and as evidenced by deteriorating paint, gray former fishing rig. No signs of life on deck – just a scrappy, disintegrating net hanging from a rusty hook.

Warily, she climbed aboard, careful to make as little noise as possible, and shifted with the easy sway of the vessel's buoyancy. As she crafted a way around to the starboard side of the vessel, peering through the above deck cabin, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. It seemed like an old vessel that perhaps someone had owned at one point, but for which he could no longer care.

She passed through the entrance to the lower deck and made her way down the stairs, at the end of which she found a door with a rusty knob. She turned the knob with some force and pushed the door open a crack.

Immediately hit with a foul odor, her nose scrunched up. She attempted to close off her sense of smell, and squelch the urge to make a noise at the putrid stench, and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the cabin below deck, understanding washed over her. In the corner of the cabin sat the very dead, decomposing body of the ship's captain.

His face was leathery and gray, undoubtedly from years at sea, and from the decomposition, his white beard was scraggly in some areas, and gone in others. His white hair was stuffed into his cap and shot out haphazardly at his ears. His mouth formed a silent 'oh' which tugged morbidly at her curiosity. What had he learned in his last seconds of life that was so surprising? Or was it just acceptance?

She wondered how it was possible that he pulled into port, anchored, and gone back below deck to die. Was it because no one was there? Had he no one to call?

His relaxed position suggested he'd sat down for a spell and expired in his sleep. It was how Max had hoped she and Alec would go, when they were underground.

A quick scan of the remaining interior proved there were no other life forms on the vessel, only old maps at a makeshift desk and a small bed big enough for just one. This old captain had died alone. She suddenly had a very real fear that she would die the same way. Old. Alone.

Max pulled the door shut and made her way back up the stairs. She hoped Alec hadn't been left somewhere to die, because this time, she wasn't with him. This time, he couldn't call her. This time, she was helpless to find him.

Sighing, she hopped off the boat and turned back toward the warehouses nearby, wondering which one held the secrets to Alec's whereabouts. She moved toward the closest building. A board creaked under her boot. Max scanned the wood and discovered a couple of wet areas across from the other two vessels.

Inspecting the first slot, it seemed to her as though the passengers had left in a hurry. _Maybe Alec? Maybe someone else? Someone he had gone to see? _No other evidence remained for her to discover.

The second wet spot was tainted by a slightly red hue. _Blood, _she realized. Panicked, she looked back at the closest warehouse to check for any signs of life or for a droplet trail that could lead her back to the starting point, the location that would have something – anything – that could lead her to Alec.

Enhancing her vision, Max scoured the three closest buildings for signs of activity. She realized she was running, blurring at full speed, toward the third warehouse's side door before it logically occurred to her she had seen it – the door frame was marred with a bloody handprint.

* * *

When awareness came back to him, Alec was very dizzy, and though it was light in the room, it no longer streamed through in rays. As he tried to sit up, he felt the pressure of a severe headache, blood pounding at his temples, in his ears, behind his eyes – especially behind his eyes.

Finally upright, he raised a hand to his throbbing head, forcing himself to stay awake, despite how much more split-open keeping his eyes open made his head feel. That's when he saw it. Blood.

Pushed by panic, he checked both hands, which seemed covered with the redness.

_What the fuck…_ he thought. He saw a small basin for washing through the doorjamb to the bathroom, and on the toilet lid sat a pair of gray sweatpants and a dark navy hoodie, both folded neatly.

Standing was a bit of a challenge with the high-grade migraine ripping through his skull, but he managed it with only a couple of faltering grasps at the wall, none of which produced bloody transfers, and stepped up into the bathroom.

His tired and disheveled reflection peeked back at him, and as he turned on the faucet, his lids shut of their own accord, a painfully bright flash passing through his mind.

Someone running in front of him, his hands rising before his eyes, seeing the red splotches adorning them, seeping from the inside out, quicker than he could remember how. Another body running, perhaps away, from him, then a swinging super-bright light followed by the hiss of a snake.

He opened his eyes, despite the pain it caused, and scrubbed his hands until all that remained of the blood were the remnants in his nail beds. Gingerly, he stepped toward the toilet, trying to keep his eyes closed against the searing head pain.

Dizziness overcame him when he bent to pick up the clothes. He felt his stomach contracting with barely enough time to lift the toilet lid before his knees hit the floor and he doubled over to retch into the white bowl.

Yellow. It was all yellow.

He tongued at the roof of his mouth dryly, feeling a tiny bit better, stood, flushed the toilet, and looked into the mirror again. His shirt was beyond sweat- and blood-stained, and though he appeared to be pallid, he felt sweaty as if his core temperature was heating him from the inside out.

He began to undress in preparation for changing clothes.

* * *

As she crept into the eerily quiet warehouse, Max scanned the walls for the exits and light sources. After a few moments, her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she could discern she was in some kind of control room. Or, judging by the (probably) two-way mirror, someone's 'observation room.' The idea of it made her stomach turn, and she hoped her instincts were wrong.

She saw the empty glass cage atop the nearest table. Aquarium? Terrarium? She wasn't sure; there was nothing in it. The three chairs in the small room were left in disarray, suggesting whoever had been there was in a hurry to leave. All of the clues outside, however, seemed to prove they successfully absconded.

Finally, she saw a multi-switch panel near the interior door. Flicking the fist switch up, the observation room lit up, bathing itself in a soft yellow hue. Unfortunately, it didn't illuminate anything she hadn't already seen the dark, except now she could see her reflection in the two-way mirror. And it seemed worried. Her lips were pale, and seeing their color made her moisten them.

She reached to the next switch, dreading what it might show. Flicking it up, she heard a loud transfer of energy, and saw a ring of floodlights to the left middle of the warehouse light up. All the lights seemed pointed toward some subject in the center, except the subject was missing.

Her curiosity at its peak, and flipping the next switch, Max saw another ring of lights illuminate the same amount of nothing just to the right of the first ring.

She flipped the last switch, a stifled 'no' escaping her throat as she recognized the shape, and consequently the identity, of the body hanging in the third circle.

In a rush to get out into the warehouse, Max pulled the door open and felt something scrape against her leg. She ignored the painful sensation as she made her way out to the third ring, watching the body for any signs of life. The sound of air breathing in or out, the sound of shackles and chains rattling as if someone trying to wriggle free, the biting words of her sarcastic twin. None of it came. She just hung there.

Max felt a couple of tears sting the backs of her eyes, tears that would not make it to the surface. It was a bit creepy, seeing Sam hanging there. It was like seeing herself hanging there. Seeing herself dead. She admonished herself for thinking Sam looked almost… peaceful. It wasn't fair for her to be thinking Sam might be in a better place. It was bullshit, was what it was.

At her right, just outside the circle, Max saw the booted foot of a guard. The treads on the boots were heavy. She followed the boot up the body and noticed that the guard's left hand was missing, its wrist lying in a pool of blood, some of its skin torn, and the carpal bones in various stages of rough break. _Jesus_, she thought, grimacing at the display. She scanned around for the hand and discovered it a dozen yards from where she was standing. The guard's neck had also been broken, the lips resting unmoving in the wrist's reddened puddle.

At her left, inside the middle ring of lights, she saw some yellowish vomit on the floor. Unsure of what to make of it, she let her mind wonder the possibilities. Perhaps whoever was there had been sickened by something, or injected with something his body wouldn't take. Was it Alec? Or was Alec at the far left's ring of lights? If so, who was at this second post?

Behind the middle ring, she saw another body – a woman's, with what appeared to be a snake coiled up close to her. Max walked carefully around the rings of light, perhaps out of some idea of keeping her anonymity, and came upon the other body. This body still had two attached hands, so whatever it was that the booted guard had done must have been really terrible to warrant such a violent response. One of the woman's hands was covered in a chain-mail type glove; the other rested in a 'stop' motion at her temple.

Max took a step closer and heard the telltale hiss of a snake. The snake had curled up in a pile a foot from the woman's legs, and as Max approached, the snake slithered away from her. The woman's arm had puncture marks, undoubtedly from the snake (who, Max noted, must have been supremely agitated to attack its handler), but the woman appeared to have died from being strangled. Post-mortem bruising had already begun to surface, and the woman's eyes were stuck open in shock.

_What happened here_? Max wondered.

* * *

Alec climbed the narrow staircase topside. He was on a boat. On Lydecker's boat.

As he stepped out into the sun, he squinted against its brightness and made his way to the aft of the vessel. He knew they were anchored wherever they were. He spotted Lydecker's blonde hair and trekked his way toward it.

When he came into view, Lydecker was placing a gutted fish on the small camping grill next to another fillet. He pulled a swig of water and looked up to Alec. "Have a seat," he said.

Alec lowered himself and dangled his feet off the back of the boat as Lydecker reached to the other side of the grill and produced a small blue thermos. He removed the cup lid, unscrewed the interior lid, and poured liquid into the cup. He pushed the cup over to Alec. "Drink this."

"What is it?" Alec asked hoarsely, looking down at the liquid. It was mostly clear with little pieces of green and white in it.

"It's an old herbal remedy. It's a tea. Drink it; it'll make you feel better."

Alec took a small sip and nearly spit out the contents. "This is terrible."

"Just down it. Trust me." Lydecker used a small paring knife to cut around the stem and core of a small tomato. He sliced the piece in half and ate one of them.

Alec gulped down the liquid, sputtering only at the end. He set the cup down, and immediately his stomach cramped. Hanging on to the small ladder at the back of the boat, he leaned forward and threw up into the water.

As he righted himself and the vomit floated away at the water's surface, Alec really felt a little better than the last time he threw up.

"In a few hours, we'll try some regression techniques to help you remember." Lydecker handed Alec the other half of the tomato and picked at some raw veggies, tossing a few pieces in his mouth. "For now, eat."

Alec did not feel like eating, but he acquiesced. He knew the last thing he'd eaten was the cheeseburger and fries Joshua brought him, and he wasn't really sure when that had been. As he fished for carrots and broccoli from the bag, he felt his migraine lightening.

"I never knew about your meeting with Sandeman," he divulged.

Alec crunched the carrots and carried his discerning stare up to Lydecker's icy blue eyes.

* * *

The rain stalled itself for about the time it took for Max to check three-quarters of the perimeter. Even as the rain started to come down, Max found no additional clues as to where Alec had gone. The most likely scenario was that he had been recaptured and brought back to another Manticore facility, taken to the Conclave, taken to some other enemy she'd never know about (which made the pit of her stomach drop – then everything would be futile), or maybe that he was already dead.

She pushed those thoughts aside, not wanting to think about that option. To have been given another chance by making it out of the bunker but have that chance ripped from her seemed too much to bear.

In utter helplessness, she considered calling Logan. Maybe he'd be able to uncover some kind of trail. She rethought the idea. _No, I need to stop relying on him and start relying on myself. I used to do this by myself all the time. _

There was one thing she needed to do right away. She owed it to Sam and Sam's family.

Max busied herself bringing down Sam's body, which could have been a comedy of errors, save for the morbidity of the whole thing. She had to bring a rolling chair from the observation room out into the warehouse in order to reach the shackles which held Sam's body in place by her wrists. Once or twice, her stance faltered and she had to let go as the chair rolled in one direction or another.

When she was face-to-face with her deceased twin, she froze, imagining what it must have been like in her last few days, last few hours. Would she have given in? Did she claim not to be 452? Would she have cried? Sam's face showed no signs of tears, and for that, Max was proud. _Not even in the face of death._

Her back, on the other hand, had been marked up something serious. Gently, as if not to further injure her, Max unshackled one possibly broken wrist, releasing Sam's arm, which swung lazily at Max's side. The chair shifted, but Max held her balance, even with the addition of some of Sam's weight. She switched arms and reached her other arm up to unshackle Sam's left arm.

As Sam fell limply into Max's arms, she stepped back off of the chair and gently sat Sam in the chair. Sam's head lolled to the right and Max caught a glimpse of her twin's barcode. Except it wasn't Sam's barcode. _It's mine. What the hell?_

Max brushed her twin's dark hair from her neck to see if she was hallucinating. There, in plain sight, was a poorly done skin graft of her barcode. _Enough to fool an elderly man whose vision might be compromised?_ wondered Max.

The guilt crept up into her mind quickly, making her think things she couldn't help but feel. _Why was Sam grafted with my barcode? Would I have died if the Manticore creeps had captured me instead of her? _She had to push those thoughts away. She couldn't undo what they had done. She couldn't bring Sam back to life.

A new form of guilt presented itself when she remembered Sam's son. Sam's husband. She wondered if they knew what happened. She wondered if Sam knew what was happening when it was happening. She wondered if Sam did know, whether or not she had a choice.

Sighing, Max decided she would take Sam out of this grungy warehouse and give her a burial at sea. No one, not even Manticore, could ever put their hands on her again.

From the other warehouses, Max pulled a few pallets and tied them together with twine. She collected debris from the surrounding trees and from inside some of the warehouses, preparing as much as she could for a successful ignition.

She piled the pallets with broken wood and other debris from around the area, and wheeled Sam's body out to the raft. As gently as she could manage, she laid Sam's body atop the heap.

She hadn't realized how late it was until she saw her own shadow lengthening and felt the grumble of hunger in her belly. _How long have I been at this?_ she wondered.

She looked around for gasoline or a lighter, for anything that could help ignite the raft. At sundown, she checked Brie's Breeze, but no incendiary devices were found. It was only a few minutes aboard Sea No Evil when she found the rocket flares. _Perfect._

Max pulled the rope from the dock and pushed the raft in the direction of the current. As it slowly drifted out, she shot the first flare into the debris. It lodged itself in the twigs and leaves, and slowly, a bit of smoke rose up from its location. She then shot the second flare into the opposite side, and it lit up the cloth immediately.

Within a few minutes, the flames grew until they began lapping at her twin's arms. The further the floating hearse drifted, the brighter the flames became. Max watched the raft disappear into the horizon, giving every last second she could to respect her twin's life, and, though it made her ill to think it, Sam's sacrifice.

With the flames too distant the smoke trailing in the night sky, Max turned back toward the alley.

_If Alec is still alive, please let him come home safe_, she begged. No one would hear her, but she would repeat it many times before she reached her motorcycle. She wondered if she should try to find a way to transport his bike home.

She needed to think of some way to find him. It occurred to her maybe Dix could find some surveillance or something. _Just maybe._

* * *

_He was walking alone down the hallway, just as he'd been instructed. Fifty-three steps forward before he turned right and walked another thirteen. The guard let him in, told him to sit down, and shut the door behind him. _

_The Victorian type study with its ornate furnishings and hundreds of books lining the walls had been a little intimidating to him. He hadn't seen rooms like this before. He hadn't imagined rooms like this before._

_It wasn't long before the old man showed up, shifting his cane to his right hand, walking in as if in practiced motions, as if he could maneuver in this room blindfolded. _

_Gently, the older man verified that he was 494, verified that it was he who had selected the chair in which he was sitting. He seemed to be verifying that he had made the right choice when he had selected 494. He had explained that he would ask for a favor, a Top Secret favor, about which 494 was to tell no one, with which 494 was to trust no one, except for him._

_He had produced the photo of the young girl. Dark hair – what little of it was visible against her scalp, anyway. Bigger than average lips. Her lips were what convinced him she was a girl. But what struck him most about her was the trustful, yet surprised look on her face. Big brown eyes peered at the camera's lens as the picture was taken._

_He needed 494 to take care of the girl in the picture, to protect her. He explained, his gravelly and, as he wouldn't recognize until much later, paternal voice calming the young soldier, that the girl in the picture, she was special, and that her potential would be unrealized without his involvement. And the things she was meant to do were very important._

_The older man told 494 that he would present him with more information as the need arose, and that for now, 494 would look after her and do his best to keep her safe._

_In his most confident stature and voice, 494 accepted this top secret request, and was ushered out of the office quicker than he'd been let in. The guard at the door pushed the young child by his neck out into the yard. _

"Interesting," Lydecker interrupted, his voice masking the tones of déjà vu.

Alec remained horizontal on the cot, brows fixed upward in surprise, but eyelids closed. The needle in his arm jiggled as his muscles twitched. He wanted to stay inside the memory and remember what else they had zapped and poked and tortured out of him over the years, over his stints in Psy-Ops.

Lydecker was speaking again. "Sandeman entrusted me with a group of young ones – her unit. He needed me to make sure they stayed alive, because once people, higher ups, officials, governments, whoever… found out which unit the 'special' one was in, they'd be hunted."

Alec was only half-listening. The other half of him was still walking through his memory.

_Out on the field, he saw a unit of young children. He recognized her eyes when they flitted over her unit mates. They held that same trust and masked something even deeper under their surface. One of the boys in her unit said in a transgenic whisper, 'Hey, Maxie, don't let them see you shake.' When 494 turned toward the voice, he saw a mirror image staring back at him. It would be the only time he ever saw his twin. _

_Within the moment, the young girl from the picture straightened her back, squared her shoulders, and stared straight ahead. The unit had been called to attention, and 494 realized he shouldn't have been out in the yard. He'd surely get KP for disobedience. Or maybe the guard would be reprimanded for being unable to tell him apart from his twin._

Alec opened his eyes to Lydecker attending to his arm's IV, the bluish-green liquid nearly gone from the bag. "Your system processed this stuff faster than in regular humans," Lydecker said, holding gauze over the insertion point as he pulled the needle out. "I should have bought more so you could go under again. In case there's more."

Alec reflected on the last part of his memory. _Maxie._ It had to be her, it had to be Max he had inadvertently run into out in the yard. And the boy had to be Ben. Ben had called out to his sister not to shake.

He considered maybe it was in their shared DNA to look after Max. Maxie, to them, was their younger, smaller sister, but Maxie to Alec was the enigma, the woman, and the best friend he was sworn to protect, and for whom he had deeply fallen.

"When I saw the adult 452 – Max – I knew it was her. She was the 'special' one Sandeman was talking about. I had been trying to find their unit for the better part of ten years, and so were bounty hunters and government assassins, and other Manticore soldiers. They all knew her unit had the special one, so they began abducting them, performing tests, weeding out which ones weren't special." Lydecker looked away a moment with deep regret. He hadn't wanted any of his kids hurt, let alone killed.

Just like her sisters had been, Alec realized, if Max was captured by any of these entities, she would be experimented on, and probably killed.

Alec sat up slowly, and when Lydecker removed the gauze from his hand, he realized no blood had spilled at all. In fact, the tiny hole seemed to have repaired itself already. He attempted to hide his surprise, but Alec had already looked down in realization of the same thing. The two men mutely ignored that information for the time being.

"I passed their tests," Alec voiced.

"You shouldn't have. You should have died."

Of course Lydecker was right. It was Max's blood that passed the tests. Without it, he would have died. It explained why he was feeling so ill with dehydration, migraine, and stomach upset when he awoke. His defenses had kicked into overdrive and he was healing faster than the poisons were leaving his body.

It was absurd, and Alec laughed out loud. _Not even here and she's saving my life. _

Lydecker's microscopic change in expression showed his partly-confused reaction.

"Max transfused me," Alec divulged after a moment.

Lydecker's bushy eyebrows furrowed together at Alec's admission. He knew a soldier wouldn't give another a transfusion unless under unbelievably extenuating circumstance. "Because of the underground cell," he concluded.

Alec nodded, and recognized in the return stare that the old colonel understood something he wouldn't say aloud.

"This whole thing is much bigger than me. And you. And she seems to be the key."

Alec stared into the distance past the colonel. "We have to go back. I have a plan."

Standing, Lydecker made his way out of the cabin and up the narrow staircase.

Alec followed him a few paces behind. When he reached the deck, he saw that it was nighttime already. He hadn't realized how long he spent under the influence of whatever memory-retrieval drug Lydecker had administered to him. The colonel, himself, was looking out at the sea, his face lit up in moonlight and yellows. Alec turned to see what was so captivating.

A flaming raft bobbed toward them in the distance.


	15. Day Five Abv (Pt 1): Coming Back For You

Racing through the slick Seattle streets and back toward Terminal City, Max felt her skin tighten, her blood moving hastily through her veins, her lids squeezing some of her vision off from the rest of the world. Her whole body was like a taut wire, ready to snap.

She was close. She knew Alec had been in that warehouse, on that dock, somewhere very nearby. But she couldn't find one clue to point her in the direction he had been taken. It was the only explanation she could consider. If he had gone somewhere of his own free will, he would have found some way to let her know where he was.

Ultimately, she had decided to leave his bike behind the dumpster. If he had escaped, he might need it. If he hadn't escaped… Well, she didn't want to think about that.

Coming to a stop nearing the Sector 9 checkpoint, she revved her engine, anxious to prove she had control over something, anything, because she had zero control over her emotions. As her eyes began to sting with the promise of tears, the light turned green and she gunned her engine through the intersection, her back tire burning rubber as she nearly fishtailed, her engine's power reverberating through her boots and up through her core.

_I will find Alec._

* * *

Hearing the tell-tale sounds of a motorcycle approaching Command, Luke stood up at the network center and waited like a deer in the forest for the sound which would give them all more information. "Someone's here," he said, trying to hide his hope that it was Max and Alec.

"Only one," Dix commented, head tilted to one side. He adjusted his headset over his pale, bald head.

"Probably just someone else with a bike," Mole added, unwilling to entertain the idea that Max had failed in her mission to bring Alec home.

The three soldiers made their way outside, a wake of transgenics and transhumans falling in line behind them.

As she came into view, no soldier could hide their surprise that she was alone.

"Shit," Mole muttered.

Max came to a stop in front of them, cut the engine, and pulled of her helmet. Her hair flowed about as she barked out orders. "Dix, get me satellite on Burrard Inlet for the past few days," she began, climbing off her bike, stowing her helmet at the rear, and walking toward the crowd. "Luke, has anyone kept in touch with 453/Sam or kept tabs on her location? I need to inform next of kin."

A few transgenics exchanged surprised glances as Max breezed past them. With her expression steeled so tight, it was obvious she was shutting out emotion. They'd all done it before – compartmentalized to continue the mission. It was a tactic which statistically proved greater rates of mission success.

A small murmuring preceded her, but tongues stopped wagging as she moved through the parting crowd. It was as if no one could confidently look at or speak to her; they simply did not have the answers for which she was desperately looking. None of them knew where Alec was, if he was still alive, what had really happened over the last few days, or what kind of emotional turmoil had led up to this very moment.

"I'll look," Luke said, following her into Command.

"Anyone seen Joshua?" Max asked, turning to view the sea of sad faces. Surely, they were concerned about Alec, possibly even let down that she hadn't brought him back with her. _Yet,_ she amended mentally.

"It's five in the morning, Max. If he's not at Mess, he's probably cuddled up to some other canine having puppy dreams about chasing the lot of you," Mole said with a dismissive wag of his finger.

Max's stomach grumbled again as she headed toward Mess.

* * *

Alec turned the corner into the alley where he'd hidden his bike. Had she been here? There was a faint scent on the breeze, and it made him feel as if his brain was supplying false information. Of course Max was not here. She was asleep. Comatose, after the double transfusion. _Which is my fault. _

Again, he remembered their conversations in the bunker, the soul-piercing stares she'd given him, the gentlest pressure on his neck. Was any of it real?

Just those thoughts alone made him homesick.

_Home,_ he thought. There was a place and time in which 'home' meant 'home base,' back at Manticore. On away missions, he would think of home as the place he could share stories and laughs with Biggs, run maneuvers with his unit and improve his hand-to-hand, and sit down to some not-so-terrible food at Mess, and fix himself for cash with outside deals with the guards, and drill and train for defending the facility. Home was the cell he grew up in.

But now, 'home' was a word which meant so much more, or at least had the opportunity to mean more. It could mean a new community, a new unit for which he was partly responsible. It could mean an apartment full of things that he wanted, that he purchased for himself. It could mean something different. He (sappily, if he were in the mood to admit it) wondered if 'home' could be something other than a place.

As he started his engine, Alec scanned the area for any movement, any sign that someone was still here. Anyone. Max. But that was wishful thinking, since he was met only with a small shift in the wind which carried away with it his brain's misconceptions, and a light rain which washed away his hopes, neither of which seemed good omens.

Lydecker was already gone, he knew, starting on his part of the bargain. Now all Alec had to do was complete his – mountain of a task it was. He wasn't sure if he could convince Max to go along with it, if and when she finally woke up; but even if he could convince her, there was still one more thing he needed to do before he could go back to TC.

* * *

When he arrived at the penthouse, Alec didn't bother knocking this time, since he was consistently met with such hostility. He noticed the busted door handle and smiled to himself. He thought it might have been Max's boot-damage – especially since she couldn't touch his doorknob with her bare hands, and undoubtedly, no one had offered her a spare set of don't-touch-Logan gloves.

He pushed at the door, which opened only an inch or two. Turned out Logan's security chain was his only measure of defense against petty larceny, or, judging by some of the paintings in the hall just inside the door, grand larceny. He would have chuckled to himself if any of this were under better circumstances.

"Logan!" he called out, shoving as much of his face as he could into the small crevasse.

Logan used his feet to shove his rolling chair away from his computer, sending his seated form out into the hall. He leaned backward to see if he could identify the voice coming from the doorway.

"It's Alec," he offered when Logan's face came into view. He pulled his head back. Judging by the near-murderous glare in Logan's eyes, perhaps giving him a 'Here's Johnny' moment wasn't be the best idea right this second.

Logan stood and his exoskeleton whirred toward the door, his stomping clearly a sign of the hacker's current mood. He closed the door and unchained the ball from its latch. He pulled on the handle and walked back toward his chair. "Thanks for not kicking the door in."

"Yeah, no problem," he said, not really paying attention to the other man's sarcasm. He pulled the sleeves of the hoodie over his wrists. He wasn't keen on showing them until those blisters and burns healed.

Logan's eyes took in the transgenic's wardrobe. Undoubtedly, he looked ridiculous. Gray sweatpants a size or two too short, navy pullover hoodie, tan boots, which, paired with the elasticized ankles of the sweats, called attention to his lack of socks. Then there was the mop of greasy hair resting comfortably on his scalp, and a dark blonde beard, a few scraggly pieces jutting out of their own accord.

Alec imagined his skin was pale from everything his body had gone through over the last few…days?

"You look like death warmed over," Logan said with a slight sneer.

"You look like you haven't slept since '99," he returned, immediately on the defensive.

And he wasn't too far off. Logan's irises danced atop red-rimmed lids, themselves held up by saggy, dark half-circle bags. Despite his obvious anger, Logan's movements carried the vestiges of a tired body running on empty.

"Well, it's six in the morning, Alec, what did you expect?" he responded acerbically.

Though he wanted to ask Logan what was wrong, Alec was getting a serious vibe of 'lay off,' so he decided to cut to the chase. "I was wondering if you found out anything about the guy with heterochromia."

Straight to the point, Logan realized. Alec always got straight to the point. "Yeah, come on in," Logan said, rolling his chair back toward his computer. He sat back down in it and faced the monitor, minimizing one screen and navigating through a few menus to bring up two others he thought Alec needed to see. "I tried calling you, but I got voicemail. I'm guessing your phone's off?"

_My phone, _Alec thought. He tried to remember when he'd seen it last. Down in the bunker? No, he had it with him last he saw Logan. "I lost it," he said. "I'll grab another on my way home and text you with the new number. In the meantime, whattaya got for me?" Alec stood a few feet behind Logan, trying not to push the man's personal boundaries.

"Well, I did some searching on the informant net and, these guys really know how to bury their secrets. This guy you spoke of, his name's Jeffrey Fink." The name came out of Logan's mouth as if projectile-vomited. He turned to face Alec.

Alec took moment to scan his memory for that name. It didn't ring any bells. Manticore doctors and scientists didn't exactly wear name tags, though, so that didn't really mean anything. They had badges with barcodes, lab coats stained with the sins committed on site, but not names. He doubted Jeffrey Fink was even Scruffy's real name.

"He was in charge of fertility matching," he continued through grinded teeth. The disgust was still prevalent in his expression, but he attempted to school his features to a professional detachment. "By the way, that whole thing is messed up."

Alec looked lightheaded for a moment as he took in the journalist's information. _Fertility matching,_ he echoed. It didn't really explain anything. Yes, he and Max were scheduled breeding partners, but what did that have to do with being 'the one'? What was Fink looking for now, almost ten years later? Why would he expect Alec to have the answers if Max didn't? And what is his endgame?

"What did you find out?" Alec probed. He regretted the question on his own behalf, hoping Logan did not discover any kind of program lists which would implicate his and Max's paired arrangement.

"I just know that after Max blew up the database, they pulled some decade-old files. They are pretty well-encrypted. I haven't been able to hack them yet, but I'll get through eventually. Maybe they'll tell us who all of your parents are."

_Let's hope you find that and not the soldier-breeding program, _Alec thought. _Because Max would never forgive me if I let you find out about how we fit into Manticore's breeding program. _"What about Fink? What happened to him? Any idea if he's still working for Manticore?"

"He made it out of the fire," Logan said. "But no sightings since." He pinched and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. All this research was taking a toll on him.

"Until now," Alec added.

"Wait, you've seen him?" Logan's head jerked upward to Alec's standing form. He was hungry for this information.

Alec was taken aback. "Well, I went to follow a lead and kinda bumped into him."

"'Kinda bumped into him'?" Logan repeated, as if this was the information he'd been looking for over the past year and Alec had been deliberately hiding it from him. "What did he want?" he added, suddenly very interested. His demeanor changed when Alec didn't answer right away. "What did you do?"

"Take a breath, man. I don't know what he wanted. Something about 'the one,' whom I'm pretty sure is Max."

"How do you know that?"

Alec didn't want to get into the details until he had a chance to talk to Max. Telling Logan everything that went down at the warehouse meant hanging around Logan's apartment longer than he wanted, when clearly more pressing concerns were at the forefront of his mind. "I don't know. Just a feeling I got. I don't think he's the one pulling the strings on this puppet show, though, which is why I gotta find him, and talk to Max."

"When Max was here, she asked about what you were looking for, and when I told her, she got this far-off look in her eyes like she knows this guy. Does she know this guy? Is he a threat to her?"

Alec's brows scrunched in concern. "Max was here?"

Logan nodded. "She woke up yesterday." He observed how Alec's expressions flooded him with relief, then worry, then uncertainty, and finally, desperation.

"How was she?" he asked, and try as he might, he was unable to mask his concern. It was as if that question alone was a betrayal of his emotions – to her not-like-that-boyfriend, no less, whom clearly still cared for her deeply.

"Worried about you," Logan answered simply. He turned back to his computer, trying unsuccessfully to cover up his jealousy.

A flush of déjà vu rolled through Alec. He thought she had been at Burrard Inlet, thought he could smell her on the wind. He remembered the floating raft, and took a deep breath as the realization hit him. _The raft. A soldier's burial at sea. She would want that for herself, so Manticore could never touch her again. That's what she gave Sam. That's how she respected Sam._

He looked down as another realization hit him. _That means she knows why Sam was murdered._ He knew, as easily as he knew his own designation, his own name, that Max was feeling guilty. That's how she was. She felt things to her core, and she struggled with the imbalance of the world. This would cut her deeply.

Logan waited for Alec's reflection in his monitor to look back up, but he seemed deep in thought. Eventually, Alec's face grew more serious. "Think you can catch a lead on this guy's boat? I can give you a place and time where it _was_, and satellite should be able to show you where he went."

"Sure."

Alec hesitated a second. "Do you know where she is? I really need to talk to her."

Logan swiveled to face the tense transgenic and pursed his lips. He wondered if he should tell Alec about the cure, and how she hadn't reacted to it, and how she only seemed interested in finding Alec. Struck by the absurdity of it, he half scoffed, half laughed, and then offered up the truth. "She went after you, but I don't know where."

Alec pulled a ball-point pen from the high-end, wooden, cherry-stained pen caddy Logan kept next to his monitor, and wrote down the address of the warehouse and marina. "I'll text you with the new number in an hour." He turned to leave, surreptitiously clipping the pen to the neck of his hoodie. "Thanks, Logan."

* * *

The Mess Hall was in the cafeteria of an old high school. The cafeteria was connected to the gym by an aluminum accordion door. Max walked through Mess with purpose, only to find Joshua wasn't eating, he was cooking. She found him behind the counter, with a hair net pulling his long hair back and a chef's hat over the top of it all. With the pristine white apron over his head, it was quite the sight to see.

"Hey Big Fella," she started, walking through the cafeteria's line. "What's on the menu today?"

"Uh, Little Fella hungry?" he asked, holding up a serving spoon.

Max smiled. "Yeah."

Joshua pulled a bowl from a stack of matching, dull serving ware, and scooped something into it. "Little hot dogs in mac and cheese. Little hot dogs for Little Fella." He smiled kindly, thinking Max could use some lightness right now. "No Alec?" He raised the bowl over the sneeze guard and handed it to Max.

Max accepted the bowl uneasily. "I haven't been able to find him," she admitted. "Do you think…?"

"Alec a fighter," Joshua said intuitively. "Don't worry, Max."

Max bit her lip, weighing the pros and cons of what she was thinking of asking. As much as she hated the idea, it was the only other idea she had besides satellite footage. "Do you think you could tell me how to find Lydecker?"

He couldn't find the right combination of words to express how hard he knew this must be for her. His eyes darted a few directions before returning to rest on hers. "Newspaper," Joshua said. "He reads them. Every day."

Max frowned. He wouldn't be able to read every paper in the country every day, which meant he must have a system. Maybe he already knew which papers to read. The thought filled her with panic. Did he know this whole time where she was, and that's how he would know to look in Seattle? If he knew where she was, did he know where the rest of her unit had been?

And if he knew where she was, he knew where Alec was. It seemed like if he was aware of all this, then he was definitely involved in whatever happened to Alec; what else could explain that third set of lights?

"He hides," Joshua said. "Doesn't want to be on radar," he added.

"How am I supposed to find Alec if I can't find Lydecker?" She was starting to feel completely helpless.

* * *

Clutching his new phone, the number to which he had just texted Logan, in one hand, Alec made his way up the last few stairs to his floor and unclipped the pen from the neck hold of his hoodie with the other hand. He realized he'd need to get replacement door locks soon, or else have to pick his own lock on a semi-daily basis.

He was anxious to get changed out of the sweats and into some jeans and a tee. Even more exciting was the possibility of a shower and a shave, and the opportunity to check out his injuries.

Disassembling the pen, he readied the metal clip for the keyhole, but as soon as he slid the metal into it, the door swung inward a scant inch.

Immediately on alert, he held the pen remnants in a fist and tried to prepare himself for a fight. Here he was, fresh from a snakebite and chemical torture in the warehouse of a foreign land, plus a couple of days unconscious and a week underground in an alternate torture chamber, and he had to return home to a possible intruder. He would have sighed in disbelief if it wouldn't give away his presence.

The sound of something metal hitting his wooden floor startled him. Would he ever catch a break? Was he going to be hunted now at every turn, destined to wear the same clothes and never catch a shower and a shave, and never find Max?

_Better get this over with. _He tucked the phone and pen parts into his pocket, and with his body suddenly tense, he quickly pushed open his door.

Directly in front of him, standing statue-still in fight position, with puffy red eyes, quivering lips, and body just as tense as his, was Max. Relieve coursed through him. She was alive, awake, and here.

He suddenly colored, embarrassed for how he looked: sickly, disheveled and dirty, in someone else's clothes. And how he must have smelled…

The thoughts all vanished the exact moment he felt Max's arms around him, squeezing him in such a tight embrace that he could have sworn she was his delusion as he was being pressed to death. Her hand swept up the side of his neck and circled to the back of his head, where she buried her fingertips in his hair. She was talking, but it took a few seconds for him to register what she was saying.

"Thank God you're okay. Is it really you? Where were you? What did they do? Are you okay?"

"Of course. I'm always okay," he answered. His go-to answer was at the ready and it rolled off his tongue as if muscle memory. He felt her tenseness dissipate the longer he hugged her back.

She pulled away to look into his eyes, verifying for herself that it was him. She pressed his solid form with her fingertips and the palms of her hands, checking him for injuries, proving with as many of her senses as possible that it was him. She could see him, hear him, touch him.

Satisfied that it was really Alec, she pulled back a bit, made a fist, and socked him hard in the arm.

"Ow!" he said, letting go of her and raising his hand to his soon-to-be-sore bicep. He took a defensive step back. "What'd you do that for?!"

Her words sounded so angry but her eyebrows tilted in concern. "I didn't know what happened to you! I woke up and you were gone, and I thought I was alone and you were dead or recaptured or worse!"

He would have laughed at her hysteria if he wasn't so touched by her admissions. A small smile formed at his lips.

"I thought I lost you, I didn't-"

Alec stepped toward her, stilling her head's erratic movements with both hands. "I'm alive. I'm fine, Maxie. I'm alive," he assured her, everything she'd done for him rushing through his head all at once. "I'm alive because of you."

"What the hell were you thinking?" she continued, shaking out of his grasp again. "Going off on your own like that! So stupid! You could have gotten yourself killed! And I-"

Watching her gestures get demonstratively bigger, Alec watched her in puzzlement. Her words drowned together and he could tell from her breaths that she was on the verge of tears. More tears, judging by the swollen and reddened lids she was already sporting.

As if compelled, he moved toward her again, staring at her mouth as she kept lecturing him on how he couldn't even get captured right and how it was a miracle he wasn't dead, but she didn't stop him when he abruptly bent down to her and pressed his lips against hers, effectively silencing her tirade.

Pulling themselves away from one another within the second, they searched one another's faces and lips desperately, hearts pounding loudly, breathing heavily, before drawing one another back in. Max's arms reposted at their former location around his shoulder and neck, pulling his head to hers by her fingertips. He scooped his arms around her, rubbing absentmindedly at the small of her back with one thumb, and pushing his other palm up between her shoulder blades to curl softly around the back of her neck.

Max felt her hands pulling him closer instead of pushing him away. Her whole body thrummed against his, and suddenly it felt as if they were truly alone, like they had been back in the bunker.

Alec tilted his head at the suggestion from her fingertips, and felt her soft, soft lips part in anticipation. It was all the encouragement he needed when he heard her small, needful whimper. Never in his lifetime would he have thought he'd hear that from her. He parted his own lips and bowed his head to deepen their kiss, but a crude ringing broke them apart.

His eyes snapped open and studied her face and body language for any movement suggesting retaliation or murder. In the two second silence between the first and second set of ring tones, her wide eyes watched his. She was breathless, speechless. Their silence stretched into the third ring until she finally spoke. "New phone?"

He half-smiled. _Figures he'd be the one to interrupt_, he thought_._ Alec pulled the phone from his pocket. "And only one person has the number so far," he said, looking at the caller ID anyway, tapping the answer button, and bringing the phone to his ear. "Hey, Logan."


	16. Day Five Abv (Pt2): Well This is Awkward

Max sunk away from him until she felt the back of the couch underneath her, unsure of what to do with her arms. They were just wrapped up in everything Alec. _Alec._

"Already?" Alec said, holding the phone to his ear and pacing two steps toward his kitchen. "Yeah."

She wondered if she was crazy for feeling anything for him besides disgust and anger. Except, as she thought about it, she realized she hadn't felt those particular two emotions since shortly after he had revealed his connection to the torture chamber's creation. Since then, he'd humbled her by divulging his secret Manticore past. _All the torture he went through…_

Max looked down in shame and remembrance of everything they'd all been through because of Manticore.

Alec caught her movement and watched her, worried. Logan was saying something about the warehouse's electricity having been turned on for three weeks, but Max was in space somewhere, saddened by something, and he felt drawn to comfort her. He figured there were some big, hairy, ugly chunks of her past that she hadn't told him, maybe that she hadn't told anyone, and those places were festering in the darkness, and she was visiting one of those places now.

She was silent, partly to attempt to hear whatever Logan was saying on the other end – something about an electricity bill having been prepaid, partly because she didn't want Logan to know she was there, and partly because she was overwhelmed by the constant fighting. Was it so wrong not to want to live under everyone's microscope?

She flashed back to those times with Jowls, the metal barbs scraping inside her. She had tried her hardest to pretend she wasn't even in that room. It was someone else being held captive by those scientists. Someone else strapped to the chair. Someone else getting their insides thrashed. But what were they etching away? Her femininity? Her ability to reproduce? Maybe they were testing to see if her reproductive organs could heal themselves. Or were they shredded beyond repair? Somewhere just above her subconscious level, she wondered if she was barren.

Like a wave runoff, she could feel the tears at the backs of her eyes, pushing forward, threatening to pull her under so she could suffocate with her undulating memories. She didn't want to be this jagged shard of glass, grabbed at and potentially dangerous for its slicing layers, broken and stuffed beneath the disastrous crush of water, water whose mission was to smooth out her edges until she was numb and unrecognizable. She didn't want to be Manticore's secret weapon, or Eyes Only's link back to Manticore, or the Conclave's lab rat. She just wanted to be Max.

She hoped Alec wouldn't say anything to Logan about her presence. Revealing that Max was waiting at his apartment seemed like a piece of information Logan could take the wrong way. Or was it the right way? Nonetheless, it was a piece of information she wasn't ready to share. She didn't want anyone else getting hurt over her actions. She didn't want Logan getting hurt. Except, how could she avoid it?

One tear escaped the inside corner of her eye, and before it could slip down her face and leave a warm track to be cooled by the permeating Seattle air, she felt the warmth of Alec's thumb sweeping across her cheekbone, smearing the tear away. She turned into his palm and rubbed against it, raising her hand to his wrist and curling her fingers around it.

Only his sharp intake of breath alerted her to his discomfort. She looked up to Alec, whom she realized was no longer on the phone, and whose intense stare searched her eyes for the depths of their truth. She pulled his arm between them and gingerly pushed up the sleeve of the hooded sweatshirt. Deep lacerations and blisters decorated his wrist. He even showed scabbed-over cuts in various stages of healing.

"Oh my god, Alec," she started, looking back up to his eyes.

"It's nothing," he said dismissively. "What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

Max stood up, sniffled, and pushed back the tears. "What happened to you?" An image of the circle of lights flashed, confirming her suspicion. She let go of his right hand and reached for his left, repeating the same action with his sleeve to confirm the same damage on the other wrist.

Alec gently pulled his wrist from her fingers. He would not be pitied. "Nothing I won't heal from. I'm okay, Max, really."

"What happened?" she repeated, her concern evident in her stare.

Alec silently wished Logan had never called. He wasn't sure if he could find his way back to talking about their… _feelings_ now that she was intent on hearing what happened to him.

"You were at the warehouse," she stated. "And Sam was killed. And was it Lydecker strung up next to you?"

Alec nodded, surprised she had already put together as much as she did. "Did you ever meet that son of a bitch in Psy-Ops with the heterochromia?"

Max bit her lip and felt those stinging tears at the thought of his saggy face between her knees. She nodded and looked away.

He was barely able to contain his anger. He saw the way the mention of this prick upset her, and knowing Scruffy headed up fertility matching only gave him an imagination at what this twisted lab coat had done to Max.

He took a deep breath and suppressed his ire. "I was a deaf mute until he showed me Sam. I thought she was you, Max."

Max took this information in, remembering her thoughts from the bunker while Alec was slipping away. "I don't blame you. If you said anything, I don't blame you."

"I didn't tell him anything." He paused, remembering how he felt when the guard had touched Sam's face – he thought it had been Max's face at the time – and he had opened his mouth to threaten. "They were touching you," he said, as if it was his excuse for what he had done. "So that asshole says they think I'm 'the one,' which, by the way, 'the one' is definitely not me. It's you."

"What? How do you know that? Is he working with White or something?"

"Yeah, I think so. The stuff they injected me with, the snake bite-"

"Snake bite?!"

He paused, unsure of how to say it. "I passed, Max. All of their tests. All of their tests, which were meant for you."

"Wait; how do you know they were meant for me?" she asked.

Alec didn't want to burden her further, but he wanted to be honest with her. "Because I was running on Max Fuel," he said. "Remember, your silly idea to clean my blood with yours, which turned out not-so-silly since it saved my life and all. And then I'm hanging by my wrists, and it's your blood coursing through my veins, responding to the tests Sam couldn't survive."

Her heart was beating faster with anticipation. If she hadn't transfused Alec, those tests would have killed him. She was happy Alec was still alive, but terrified that it was all leading to some doomed and bleak end. "Sorry," she said. "I wasn't thinking. I should've known it would make you a target."

"No, no… don't be sorry. I'm alive because of you. And Sam's free because of you."

"Sam's dead because of me."

Alec looked away. Sam had Max's barcode grafted to her neck, and it had been enough to fool Fink, but why she would have agreed to something like that was reasoning outside of his reach, not to mention merely speculation. Did they threaten her family? In an instant, he knew Max would do the same for her family. "We don't know that."

Her dark eyes begged him to believe her. _I feel that_.

He could see there would be no discussion about Sam right now. "I don't know how, but Lydecker freed us, and I… did some things I don't fully remember. Lydecker gave me some medicine and new clothes," he looked down at his attire. "Well, new to me. And then I was right back on that dock, looking for my bike."

"Why would Lydecker help you?" she wondered aloud.

Alec pressed his lips together and considered how to approach the topic. "For now, let's just say we have a common enemy."

"What?" Max asked. The fact that he wouldn't explain the context of his association with Lydecker bothered her.

His voice calmed and he said simply, "Trust me, Maxie."

Max took a second to try to calm down. She hated not knowing what other people's plans were, especially when it involved her. But she had faith in Alec, and she would allow him some privacy. For now. "So that was Logan on the phone?" she asked. Though obviously changing the subject, she was leading him toward revealing more information.

"Yeah, he has some information for me on this guy. Wants me to come over."

"You gonna change first?" she teased.

"I know. I need a shower. Do you wanna…" he trailed, unsure. The look on her face suggested she thought he was asking her to shower with him. He smiled coyly and continued. "Do you wanna stay and we can talk more?" he asked, mentally chastising himself for sounding so lame. "Or do you just want to jump into my arms and make out?" He cracked a smile.

Blushing and trying to find the right words, Max smiled. _All this serious shit going down and the man still wants to make out._ "Alright, Romeo," she dismissed. "Go take your shower. I'll wait."

As he headed toward the bathroom, he set his phone down on the kitchen island and went about removing his hoodie. "Plenty of room in this big ol' shower…"

Refusing to encourage him, she asked, "Hey, can I borrow your phone? I gotta call Command and let them know to call off the search."

"Of course."

* * *

"Sure you don't want to go with me?" Alec asked, finally washed, clean-shaven, and in his own clothes again. He was busy tying the laces of his boot, and couldn't see how hard Max was checking him out as she fiddled with his cell phone.

Despite the circumstances surrounding everything, Max wanted nothing more than to be alone with Alec until they figured out what was happening between them, but she knew that out of the two items on the docket – one, their possibly burgeoning romance, and two, the plans White or the Conclave or Jowls had – only one would take precedence, and it was the one where time was not on their side. Begrudgingly, she said, "I gotta hit Command. They found some things while searching for you, and I gotta go check 'em out. And I have a call to make." She took a deep breath before continuing. "Besides, things with Logan… they're a little strained right now."

Alec detected the disappointment in her voice.

"But we can meet up after, to, you know, talk."

Alec moved to his other boot and tied those laces as well. He wasn't sure by her tone if she meant talk or make out. "Yeah, let's do that." He stood and pulled on a lighter jacket. "I wish I had my leather jacket."

Which, indeed, Max confirmed, was the scent missing from the Alec-bouquet. "We'll find you another one."

Alec walked the few steps between himself and Max. She handed his phone back to him, which he quickly pocketed. His face was serious again, and she wasn't sure if he was intent on kissing her or yelling at her. She hoped the former but expected the latter.

"That's exactly how Sam would have wanted it, you know. Now they can never touch her again." He squeezed Max's shoulder, the sentiment resonant of some silent vow he seemed to promise in the mere gesture.

She wasn't expecting that, and wondered, through everything that he'd been through because of her, how he could be even remotely grateful, especially on someone else's behalf. "Enough people have died trying to protect me," she responded. "I need to put an end to this. They've hurt enough people I care about." Lifting her hand to his face, she drew her thumb across his now smooth cheek, the ghost of a movement shared moments prior.

"What the hell is that?" he asked, his brows knit in confusion. He held her wrist between them and stared at it.

Max looked down and noticed a small black symbol just past the base of her palm. "I don't know." She looked back up to him questioningly.

* * *

Max's office door opened after fifteen minutes, which was ten minutes past the end of her conversation with Sam's family. Dejected, she made her way to the network command center. "Okay, gimme what you got," she said, peering over Dix's shoulder.

Dix brought up two screens, each showing footage from the marina. He played the footage from the first screen, which showed some masked figures tasing Alec, and Alec falling limply into their arms. The figures on screen carried Alec into the warehouse, and then the video stopped.

Max made a face, wondering why it was so easy for them to sneak up on him. He was the best of the best, right? Shouldn't he have heard them coming? Unless they had something in common, something like Manticore training.

"We don't know who they are," Dix started, "but we know they're male, and," he paused, replaying the footage from its start, continued. "Notice anything familiar about them?"

Max watched closely. The figures were unidentifiable because of their masks and clothing. Head-to-toe, they wore all black. Their movements were coordinated. It only confirmed her suspicion. She remembered this scenario and its maneuvers. It was over ten years old. "They're Manticore."

Dix hummed in the affirmative. "But then over here," he said, drawing her attention to the other video file. "Over here, you see two soldiers ushering this old dude with the white coat out onto the docks, where, what do we have here? A getaway lifeboat."

Max watched as the soldiers guided an apparently very scared man, who Max knew had to be Jowls, down into a life boat. "Hmm," she started, the wheels in her mind trying to reverse engineer their escape plan. "Did you get satellite of the surrounding area?"

"Ten mile radius," Dix answered. He minimized the first screen and brought up another image of a submarine resting at the water's surface just seven miles from the warehouse. The vessel looked well kept, maybe new. It was completely black, and on its rounded body, eight soldiers and one seemingly unarmed man in a suit waited for the old scientist to climb the ladder and join them.

The suited man took a calculated step forward, raised his arm, and brought it down on Jowls' neck. Jowls crumpled to the deck and lay there, appearing unconscious.

Max felt the bile creeping up into her throat. "White," she said through gritted teeth. It had to be him.

Quickly, the soldiers brought Jowls inside the vessel. After a minute, the sub sunk into the water and disappeared from view.

Max's mind was quickly filling with scenarios of how to deal with this new development. White and Jowls working together. Or maybe Jowls working for White under duress. She needed to find out what the hell White's endgame was. Why was he after 'the one,' and what the hell did that even mean, anyway? 'The One.' As if one person could put a stop to White's scheming and planning. It was all so vague and left her with more questions than answers.

"Wait, did you get footage of the dock after White submerged? Was Alec out there?"

Dix's eyes lit up. "Yep," he said, uploading the information. He hit the space bar on his keyboard to start the playback, and Max's eyes widened, trying to get a better look at the figure on screen, despite the fact that someone else's video footage wasn't susceptible to her vision enhancements.

Standing on the deck, his demeanor calm and collected, was Lydecker. And Alec was nowhere in sight.

_What the hell?_ Max thought. _Why is Lydecker helping us? First, the bunker and now with Alec. What is going on? And why hasn't Alec told me anything about it?_

"Max!" called Joshua. The tall transhuman scaled the few steps up to the network center. "Logan calling on webcam."

Dreading their first conversation since he dropped the bomb on her that he'd found and taken the cure, and consequently had disrespected Alec for the umpteenth time by ignoring Alec's well-being in favor of his own fortunate turn of events, Max thought that maybe Original Cindy was right. Maybe Logan was being selfish and greedy.

_But he still helped us, _she reasoned, giving him the benefit of the doubt, once again. She was in a fair amount of discomfort over the situation.

Dix stopped the video feed, minimized all screens and brought Logan's call up on his screen.

To say he looked both pissed off and worried simultaneously would be an understatement. On top of his raging concern, he looked like he was in serious need of some shuteye.

"Hey," he said, though it lacked the softness it had once carried.

"Hey," she responded. She knew she sounded cold. She looked away a moment, as if she could find comfort in anything inanimate as long as she didn't have to look in his eyes.

"Well, this is awkward," Alec said, his face bobbing behind Logan's as he angled to see what or who was on screen.

Mole walked up behind Max and, if Max wasn't mistaken, made a noise not dissimilar to joy. "Welcome back, Kitten Lips," he said, rolling his cigar against his upper teeth.

Alec smiled, happy to be received by his scaly green friend. "What's up girlfriend? Dija get my letters?"

Mole laughed. "Hoped you were dead," he said sarcastically.

Logan pushed Alec gently by the arm out of frame. "Max, can I see the rune?"

Max panicked. She wanted to find a way to glare at Alec through the webcam for telling Logan about her newest development. Despite the fact that she wasn't ready to show off the magically-appearing mark, she was even more apprehensive since she had no clue what it was or what it meant. And now that Logan had said 'rune,' she was filled with the stomach-wrenching turns again. 'Rune' was a term for an ancient symbol. A term which could only mean _bad_.

Logan waited impatiently.

"What rune?" Dix asked.

Grimacing, Max pulled off her glove and turned her wrist toward the screen.

Dix craned his neck back to see it. "Whoa."

"Hmm. I can't really see it that well," Logan said. "Maybe you can come by so I can get a closer look."

_Not now, _Max pleaded internally.

"I'll draw it for you," Alec said.

_Oh, thank the Blue Lady._

Logan turned slightly to look at Alec, whom was off-screen somewhere. "You've seen it up close?"

"Of course. I was there when we found it."

"We?" Logan repeated. When no one followed that up, he realized how jealous he must have sounded and scrambled to come up with more information. "So it just showed up?"

"Yeah," Max answered.

"And you didn't eat or drink anything weird?" he probed further.

"Since the chemicals and toxins in the air and water in that underground hellhole and the drugs fed to me intravenously at the Aloha Hospital? No. Oh, wait. There was this one bottle of liquid. I thought it might be fun to drink from some shady substances at the warehouse where I found a severed hand and some dead people; I was so thirsty. Was that wrong?"

"You mean the Aloha Business Park?" he asked, calculatedly, looking like he was multitasking.

Max glared at him and refused to answer.

He looked up to the screen again. "Hey, I'm just trying to help."

"Sorry, it's just really freaking me out," she said.

"What were you doing when it appeared?"

Again, Max panicked. She sent up a silent prayer to the Blue Lady that Alec wouldn't explain that they were beating an eager path to making out.

She felt a twinge of excitement remembering his lips on hers, and in a quick flash, imagined what would have happened if they hadn't been interrupted. "Driving," she said.

Simultaneously, Alec answered, "on the phone."

Logan looked back to Alec, then to Max, then back to Alec, suspicion crowding his expression. "Well, maybe whatever you were exposed to down there caused it to appear, or maybe it has something to do with your abilities, like a coded message meant to appear at a certain time."

Max considered what he suggested. If it had anything to do with what they were exposed to in the bunker, Alec would have or should have died, because she hadn't transfused him yet, and he had gone through Jowls' other tests, which apparently would kill anyone who wasn't 'the one,' otherwise Sam wouldn't have died. And wouldn't the rune have showed up at any point after the air or water? And if Alec passed the tests, wouldn't it appear on him, too? _It can't be the bunker or the toxins._

But, she considered, it could be a coded message. If an X5 could never laser of their own barcode without it coming back after a week or so, then Manticore could find a way to time-sensitive a message. Not Manticore, she realized. Some other entity. Because Manticore hadn't stuck her down in that hole – White had. Which meant the only connection was Sandeman. He was the only one capable of encoding a message.

She was so deep in her thoughts, she missed Logan's sentence.

"Sorry, what?"

He made a sour face. "Max, this could be serious. Let me know right away if you get any more, because one rune doesn't make a message."

"Do you know what it means?"

"Not yet, but I'll do some research."

* * *

Alec handed the piece of paper back to Logan. "Looks like that."

Logan perused the drawing. "Which direction does it go?"

"How should I know? _That_ way it was facing me. One-eighty that bad boy and it's facing Max." Alec stood and leaned down to peek at the monitor. "So where's Fink going?"

Distracted by his deduction of how close they had to have been standing for Alec to see the mark, Logan hummed, dumbfounded. "Uh, Fink. Right." He set the drawing down and clicked on his screen. "I think he's heading out of country."

"Why's that?"

Logan took a deep breath. "Because…" he trailed. Was he really going to explain everything to Alec and not Max?

Alec was losing patience. Logan seemed to be deliberately withholding pertinent information. He could tell by the way Logan's eyes shifted from him whenever he looked directly at him. He either thought Alec was a dumbass, or was intimidated. Or, he considered, it was information that may not be one-hundred percent accurate and therefore he was reluctant to bring it forward without verifying it. And even if he did that, it was unlikely he'd tell Alec before he told Max.

"If Max's life is in danger, you have to tell me," Alec pleaded, knowing full well he was pulling the 'Max' card on something that may not need it.

"A few miles off the dock, someone in a white coat gets dragged below deck on a sub. I'm thinking it's Fink. It submerges, disappearing from satellite."

This is what he was holding back? thought Alec. "So you can use sonar."

Logan shook his head. "We don't have access to that, and we're not there. Specifically, we were not there when it submerged. They've had plenty of time to go any direction they want."

"So you're telling me we are dead in the water," Alec surmised.

"So to speak."

"Perfect."

Logan stood and removed his glasses. He pinched the lens between sections of his shirt and rubbed to help clean it.

Something else was nagging at the tip of Alec's comprehension. Logan's behavior bordered nervousness. Maybe it was being awake for so long. Or maybe it was the awkwardness with Max.

He pursed his lips. _Yeah, it is probably related to Max._

Max, whom Alec had spent less than a minute kissing less than an hour ago, whom, after said kissing, developed a rune; Max, whom he had spent days with underground, trying to ignore his amorous feelings, but whom he was helpless to ignore.

He remembered Max had transfused him. _Maybe Logan doesn't know that. Or maybe he didn't know, because he shook my hand, and that would have made him sick, eventually dead. Or, judging by the fact that he's not dead right now, maybe he did know…_

"You found the cure," Alec stated. He wasn't sure what that meant for himself and Max.

Logan didn't tear his eyes away from cleaning his lenses. He grinded his teeth, determined not to appear defeated.

"Does Max know?" he asked, unable to stop himself. His mind raced with the possibilities of what Logan's answer might reveal. _If she doesn't know, and we're on the verge of this something more, and she finds out she can touch her not-like-that boyfriend again, maybe they'll flip that switch to 'like that' and any chance we had at that something more would be history._

What he didn't want to put his hopes in was the fantasy that she did know, and chose him over Logan, because it was exactly that: a fantasy.

Noncommittally, Logan responded. "We haven't had time to talk about it yet."

_Talk, talk, talk… _Alec chided Logan. _Talk is boring. A woman like Max needs actions!_

His new cell buzzed in his pocket. Alec pulled the cell out and answered. "Yeah?"

"If you're still at Logan's, pretend I'm someone else," Max greeted.

Alec looked to Logan. "Sorry, gotta take this. HQ." He walked away from the office and toward the front door. "What's up?"

"You gotta come back to TC. I have a plan."

* * *

Mole clapped his old friend on the shoulder as soon as he entered command. "Glad you're back," he said. "'Cause you owe me twenty bucks."

Alec gave a half-grin and scanned the room for Max. "Thanks, buddy," he started. "You'll have to hit me up in a few days. Lost my wallet."

"Convenient," Mole said as Alec breezed past him.

"And true," Alec added.

Bounding the few stairs to Dix's network, Alec spotted the hunched form of Max, decked out in all black, leaning over Dix's shoulder to peer at his monitor. He froze in place, appreciating her from behind. "You rang?"

Straightening, Max turned to face him. Struck speechless from seeing him again, and having all those pesky emotions coursing through her at just the mere sight of him, Max tried to collect herself. "Uh," she started not-so-eloquently. "Dix has a lead on the rune." She pointed over her shoulder as if to suggest Alec take a closer look. She turned back to the monitor and felt Alec step up behind her.

The warmth of his nearby body radiated through her clothes, her skin, creating a calming effect. She was surprised to feel his hand resting gently at her lower back, and despite the urge to shy away from the touch of others, she didn't bother this time. She actually kind of liked it. It made her feel like less of a freak.

"What do you have?" Alec asked.

"I found some mention and references to some symbols, and I'm running a program now to see if the mark matches any other written ancient languages," Dix informed.

"Other?" Alec repeated.

Dix tried to crane his head to look at them, which caused Max and Alec to each step back to let Dix out of his chair. "Yeah, that one," he pointed to Max's wrist, "looks like a symbol found in several old sister languages."

Max arched a brow in surprise. "Wait, you recognize this?"

Dix tried to elaborate. He stuttered nervously, unsure if Max was angry. "I – I think it's a really old, like ancient old, language, but I didn't want to give you false information."

Alec nodded. After their whirlwind week and a half, it made sense for everyone to be more careful with their information-gathering, so that no one else ended up in a secret underground bunker with only a week to live. He looked to Max, also to see if she was going to get angry for the omission, but just as he had justified himself, Max also appeared to be slightly calmer.

"What's it mean?" she asked, pulling her wrist up to check the mark again.

Dix relaxed. "It's more of a suggestion at this point," he started, "but it's something like 'Special' or 'One' or 'Created.' At least, those are the markings most similar to yours."

"Created? Great. I'm genetically engineered. Tell me something I don't know." Max stared past Dix to his monitor. It seemed to be searching for the image, and wondered if she would always feel so helpless to her own life, always be searching for her own connections and meanings.

"I think Logan was right," Dix offered. "About one rune not being the full message."

Max huffed. _There'll be more of these?_ She imagined the runes appearing, animatedly leaking more ink from the original rune up into her arm until her skin looked like very confusing pages of a book. "We talkin' _Illustrated Man_, here, or what?"

Dix gave her a puzzled look. "Even if I knew that reference, I still wouldn't be able to answer you."

Grumbling, Max crossed her arms.

Gold help him, Alec couldn't tear his eyes away from her. She was pouting like a spoiled little girl. No matter what, though, he couldn't rush his plan – not when it depended on so many others.

"It'd be helpful if we knew something – anything – about why they're after us."

"Or who," Alec added. "Because that Psy-Ops son of a bitch isn't the ringleader. Whatever White or the Conclave or Manticore has planned for us…"

Max watched him with a twinge of fear, and he didn't like that look at all. Quickly, he shut his mouth, and he and Max both looked expectantly at Dix.

Dix swallowed nervously and then spoke. "I'm researching some other intel I kind of stumbled across. I'll let you guys know when I have something solid to show you. In the meantime, Max," Dix said, turning back to his monitor, "you should do whatever it was you were doing when the rune appeared. See if you get any more."

Mole made his way up the few stairs, his rifle resting casually against his camo jacket.

"I'll keep looking for the language and any more clues." Tap-tap-tapping followed as Dix set to more research.

"Just what exactly were you two doing when the rune appeared?" Mole asked suggestively.

Max blushed for maybe the first time ever in public, and glared at Alec angrily. "You told them?"

Mole, if it was possible, looked shocked. He had expected outright denial. He watched Alec's face for any telltale signs that the question Max just asked was sarcastic or misleading or untrue in any fashion, but Alec's demeanor was both calm and rigid.

Accused, Alec kept her eye contact, surprised at her outburst; well, surprised at her choice of words. He stared at her hard, stared into her. "Actually, I think you just did."

A gleeful noise escaped Dix, and Mole grunted through his teeth, something about inevitabilities – Alec wasn't sure. He was too busy waiting for Max to lose her cool and stomp him up and down Command, even though this was definitely and unmistakably her fault.

"That's interesting," Dix piped up. "None of the other mated X's have had any ink-reactions."

"We are not mated!" Max stammered, finally breaking Alec's stare to plead her case to Dix. "We haven't –"

"So I've got the magic touch, eh?" Alec bragged.

"Stop being an ass!"

He could very plainly see Max was freaking out. He smiled, happy he could still find a way to goad her.

"This is so embarrassing," she mumbled, wishing she could dissipate into the air or fade into the nearest wall. She wished she could lie and say it had nothing to do with Alec, but she didn't know that for sure.

The four soldiers remained quiet for a moment. Mole chewed his cigar. Dix tapped at his keyboard. Max stared at Alec. Alec gave her a repentant grin.

He loved when she was uncomfortable. It was like seeing her out of her element allowed him vision to who she really was. Then he remembered he had a few things they needed to talk about. Scruffy, White, Lydecker. His smile faded, and he asked, "Can we talk in private?"

"Talk… right..." Mole said.

"Shut your lizard cakehole," he snapped at Mole. Turning back to Max, he added, "I need to talk to you about something important."

Max nodded in the direction of her office, questioningly.

Problem was, Alec wasn't ready for everyone at Command, and if Mole's big, green gossipy lizard lips were involved, all of TC, to know every detail not only of his plan with Lydecker but also his budding feelings for Max and the promise he made to Sandeman. He shook his head 'no.'

"I'll hold down the fort," Mole offered.

Max eyed him warily. "You and Dix," she countered. "Call us if you find anything."


	17. Day 5 Above (Pt 3): Surfacing

The walk to Alec's TC apartment was chilly and short, short enough to make Max feel as if she was walking on pins and needles, waiting for whatever serious conversation would come next, whatever dire situation would present itself next.

Silently, they climbed the stairs and trudged toward his front door.

Max fidgeted, rubbing her wrist at its tiny black tattoo. She wasn't sure why they needed to be this alone for this discussion, unless… Max blushed at her thought process and cleared her throat.

Alec let himself in, arguing mentally over which topic to broach first: Scruffy and the things he said and did. Lydecker and how he saved him, the plan they made to protect Max. Or Logan and the cure. But before Alec could decide, Max was already speaking.

"Do you really think 'we' have something to do with this…?" she trailed, locking his door.

"How can we? It doesn't make any sense." Alec was wracking his brain to try to make heads or tails of all the information they had. The problem wasn't that it didn't make sense; the problem was that it made perfect sense – just that why it made sense was impossible… _Right?_

_She saved my life by transfusion. I passed the tests for her. Back on land, we kiss and whatever I was introduced to in that warehouse observation room gets transferred to her. It's the solution that makes invisible ink reappear. But no such thing exists._

He shook his head, hoping that some kind of jostling would reorganize those thoughts to align and clarify some things.

Max drifted toward him. "And we haven't really talked about… down there."

Alec shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it to the couch back. "What about…" he asked, noncommittally gesturing toward his neck, his concerned eyes betraying how deeply he wanted to believe it real.

Max found herself standing less than a foot from him. "I thought I hallucinated that," she said barely above a whisper.

He closed his eyes at the apparent memory. "Me, too, but… it was real, wasn't it?" When he opened his eyes again, he saw Max's hand coming toward him gently. She swept her fingertips along his cheek.

So many things. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, but the stare he returned paralyzed her vocal chords, made her forget words, made her mouth dry. She licked her lips to relieve the dryness and felt his hand guiding her toward him by her neck.

He looked down at her lips like a hungry predator, and Blue Lady help her, she loved it. Giving her plenty of time to stop him or back out, or more true to her character, physically protest, Alec slowly bent and tilted his head to capture her lips.

Slowly, he tasted her, savoring each soft connection their lips made, letting the flavor of her roll around in his mouth until he could detect her nuances. Everything about it felt right: his soft lips moving to encompass her bottom lip, just to give it a sensual suck, a move which elicited a small moan of pleasure; the confident way he pulled her closer, held her to his body; the way he gradually deepened their kiss, until before she knew it, they were full-fledged making out. She was beginning to feel a warming tingle deep in her body.

When they came apart, Alec was breathless with desire, and Max's heart was pounding in her chest, moving up to her throat. She had wrapped her arms around his neck, the act of which had pulled her sleeves up a little, and that's when she saw them.

More runes. Alert, but not panicked, she let go of him and pulled her jacket off, discarding it to the couch next to his, and pushed her sleeves up to see where the little runes stopped.

"Oh my god," she said lowly, showing Alec how the little marks filled the undersides of her forearms like columns of ancient times.

Cradling her arms in the palms of his hands, he rubbed his thumbs over a few runes. Unlike ink, they didn't smear under his skin's natural oils. But it didn't seem to phase him.

Feeling like a genetics experiment gone wrong, Max looked to his eyes. She knew her expression showed exactly how she was feeling, a look which was only mirrored in his eyes for a short time, because she soon saw and felt the comforting caresses of his lips on her skin, kissing each rune.

The sight of it filled her with a sultry calm and a sense of being supported. He switched arms when he reached her elbow and her sleeves wouldn't go up any further, and Max took in a sharp breath as she felt his lips dance up the sensitive skin of her other arm.

Everywhere his lips touched they left a fiery wake, as if his sensitive little kisses could brand her with his desire. He reached her other arm's elbow, and for a nanosecond, Max panicked that he would stop, but he skipped over her shoulders and carried on at her neck, his tongue occasionally dipping out, tasting more of her skin.

Max let her head fall back and her eyes roll back until she shut them. She felt him kissing from one side of her neck to the other. Her only recourse was to hold on, despite how scared-out-of-her-mind she was that this all was happening, and try to even out her ragged breathing.

He must have noticed her heart beating rapidly and her chest heaving with each intake, because he pulled away from her. Heavy with blood rush, she found it difficult to let her neck pull her head back into place and her eyelids let her see him once again.

Steadying her frame, he inspected the parts of her exposed skin for the empirical evidence for which they were testing. The underside of her forearm looked the same, but the soft slopes of her neck now seemed supported by two vertical lines of the strange text.

"What?" Max asked, alarmed by the look on his face. He studied her neck with such an obvious lack of worry that she knew he was deliberately controlling his behavior. "Don't do that," she pleaded.

He brought his hands to the sides of her face and pushed her chin up with his thumbs.

"They're on my neck?" She was near-panicking. She raised her hands to his gently-probing fingertips and stilled his movements.

Taking a small step backward, Alec caught sight of something in his peripheral vision. There, in the small sliver of skin between the waist of her jeans and the hem of her shirt, were a few more little runes. Without hesitation, he brought both hands down to her sides and slowly – as if asking permission – and brought up the hem of her shirt. He bent to try to see the markings, attempting to help her maintain some semblance of modesty, but halfway down, she pulled the hem from his grasp and removed her shirt entirely.

As long, straight dark hair fell through the neck of her top and Max discarded the fabric, she could feel Alec's eyes searching her body, roaming over every visible inch, and it only made her hotter. Standing in front him of topless (save for her bra) coupled with the lustful gaze he was sporting kindled a feeling deep within her she hadn't felt in a very long time: want.

Even though her body was littered with small back runes, arranged neatly in straight lines stretching from her neck to (or perhaps past) her abdomen, Alec couldn't help but buckle at her seductively sultry eye contact. He rushed back to her and kissed her roughly, pulling her against him and growling appreciatively at her fervent reciprocity.

Insatiable, Max realized her hands were pulling up at the hem of his shirt only when he disconnected their kiss to remove the offending article, and then he was right back against her – all lean muscle and masculine Alec-y scent.

He broke their kiss again to move slightly south, back to her neck. He kissed along the sensitive skin at her neck and dragged one of the straps from her bra down as he planted kisses in its wake.

Again, her whole body was tight, scared and excited by his ministrations, terrified that she was about to become a full-fledged textbook. She wondered if kissing produced these runes, what would happen if they took it further. Max blushed at the thought, and now that she'd thought about them becoming intimate, she couldn't get it out of her mind.

Two weeks ago, she was resigned to never having sex again. _But now…_ so much had changed.

Swallowing the huge lump in her throat, Max took the plunge, reaching toward the waist of his jeans. She found the buckle of his belt and pulled the strap through the loop while Alec busied his fingers at the clasp of her bra.

Feeling the bust loosen, Max brought both hands up to her bra straps – one at mid-arm already, one still on her shoulder – and watched Alec's pupils eclipse his irises. She smiled, understanding the affect she was having on him. And she was nervous. She was fairly certain the last time she had been naked with an audience was during her heart transplant.

Biting her lower lip, she pulled the straps down and held Alec's stare. She knew he understood this gesture. She trusted him with the whole of her.

A soft ringing sounded from Alec's pants, his cell, no doubt, but he made no move to answer it. Stepping closer, he cupped her face and bent to kiss her again. The ringing stopped.

Chest to chest, skin on skin, and warm from the elevating temperature, Alec and Max continued kissing.

Until his phone rang again. Max broke off their kiss.

"Just ignore it," he said, sweeping a hand up her back, enticed by her smoothness.

Head tilting back, Max asked, "What if it's Command?"

"Then they can wait," he mumbled against her neck.

"If it is Command, it could be important," Max added, then yelled at herself mentally for creating obstacles.

Realizing that she was right, but really not wanting to, Alec backed away and fished the phone from his pocket. "I swear to god, if this is Logan, I'm throwing this phone off the Needle." He checked the caller ID as Max suddenly became aware of her complete toplessness and covered her chest. It wasn't like the caller could see her, but she was suddenly feeling too underdressed.

"Yeah," Alec answered. He looked over to Max like it physically hurt him not to be touching her, and to realize they weren't going to get the privacy they desired. "Yeah, hold on buddy." He held the phone out to Max. "Josh."

With one hand still protecting her naked parts, Max accepted the phone and raised it to her ear. "Joshua? What's up, Big Fella?"

"Little Fella gettin' busy?"

Disappointed that reality encroached on their alone time, Max sighed. "Not anymore. What's up?"

"Uh, big news. He surrendered. Says he'll only speak to you."

"Who?"

"Lydecker."

Just hearing his name made her skin crawl. Add that to the fact that her arms, chest, back and neck were covered in runes, and she was topless, and the end result was a feeling of utter violation and disgust.

While promising they'd be right in, Max scrambled to find her bra, which Alec handed her the moment she turned. Max hung up the phone and was about to redress herself.

"Wait," Alec said, accepting his phone back. The shape of her body made him swallow hard. _Responsibility sucks._ "We should take pictures of your new runes. Get them to Dix."

Max whimpered and pouted at how unfair this whole thing had become. But of course, he was right. Dix could find more if he had more runes, more data. She sighed in resignation. "Where do you want me?"

His brows lifted and she could see his Innuendo Hamster running its heart out as fast as hamsterly possible. He refrained from saying 'everywhere,' and instead gestured toward his kitchen barstool.

Straddling the chair backwards, Max sat with her back straight.

Alec pulled the other stool up behind her and planted himself in it. "I'm sorry, Max," he started. "I can't imagine how you're feeling right now-"

"Freakish."

"-but I need to tell you something." Placing one warm hand on her shoulder and sweeping it across to her other shoulder to move her hair out of the way, he breathed deeply.

Max peered over her shoulder and tried to suppress the urge to lean back against him. He could have put his shirt back on, but he hadn't. Maybe to help her feel comfortable? She wasn't sure, but she wasn't complaining.

As he started taking pictures of the lines of runes on her back, his hand swept over her skin, trailing waves of goose bumps. For a full minute, he was quiet at work. "I knew Lydecker was going to surrender. He got me out of that warehouse and back to 'healthy,' and we need his help on this."

_Okay, not what I expected,_ thought Max. "On what?"

He hesitated. "I didn't tell you everything before."

She waited. This was possibly the worst time he could confess that he lied. "You wait until now to show me I can't trust you? For Christ's sakes, Alec, I'm topless in your kitchen and we just-" she paused to gesture to where they'd just been standing, making out, and getting ready to take their relationship to the next level. "You know…"

Alec lifted her arm to capture the runes running down the side of her torso. "Max, please. Just trust me. Everything I've done is all to protect you. Including working with Lydecker, whom, by the way, is also doing this to protect you." He photographed the underside of her arm, only momentarily distracted by the part of her breast over which her hand curved. _Stupid phones. Stupid interruptions._

Max felt her blood heat up. "I'm tired of everyone doing things for me, risking their lives-"

"Hey, before you blow a gasket, just listen to me," he pleaded. "If you still want to murder me after this, then, just, I don't know, give me a head start." He smiled too-lightheartedly for the gravity of the situation.

"Talk fast," she ordered, teeth gritted.

Dropping her arm, he moved to the alternate side, Max mirroring her movements, covering herself on the other side.

"I went to Lydecker because he used to facilitate some of the Neuro division's hypnotherapy with chemical assistance, and I needed him to do that for me again, because I had a dream at some point before I woke up, and turns out it was a memory."

He snapped a few pictures and gently caressed her arm back into its resting position. "And in that memory, I met with Sandeman. And it was about you."

Max's eyes widened. "How do you know that?"

"Because of these," he said, sweeping his fingertips along her shoulder's runes.

"What? You can read them?" she blurted out sarcastically.

"No," he said. He realized she wasn't backing away from his touch. "I just feel it. Besides, I don't think anyone else was meant to get these. Otherwise I'd be covered in 'em, too." He looked down at his own bare arms.

Max took a breath. "So what did you find out with Lydecker? What happened with Sandeman?"

"Time to turn around, Maxie," he said, glancing quickly down to the exposed parts of her torso.

She swiveled and sat facing him, hands covering herself, and became suddenly very nervous.

"Try to relax," he coached.

"You try to relax with a body bedazzled by tiny tattoos," she said, looking down at the markings she could see.

"I _am_ trying to relax," he countered, tearing his eyes from her body. "Well, trying to maintain control anyway."

Max blushed. Absentmindedly, she wondered why. Why now? Why Alec? Would the runes have appeared without him if she'd been captured by Jowls instead and hadn't transfused Alec, or was he a necessary part of the equation? Was this all planned from the beginning of their existence? Is that why they were partnered for breeding?

"Maxie, look at me," he said, reaching out to her face and caressing her cheek. She met his eyes and he continued. "I am supposed to protect you. That's what Sandeman asked me to do. I just forgot about the meeting – either I was too young or Psy-Ops burned it out of me or something, but-"

Max's brows knit in confusion. "You were the little boy," she said quietly.

"Yeah, I was a little boy," he trailed, wondering how far off her rocker she might be to find enough importance in the detail that it bore repeating.

"No. You were _the_ little boy," she said, looking up into his eyes. "I had a dream, too."

Silently, Alec congratulated himself for the plan he strategized with Lydecker. Maybe their luck was turning around. If Max had a full memory of what Sandeman told her, she wouldn't be just now coming to the realization that Alec was the boy in one of her memories; it had to be a memory related to Sandeman, which meant that if Lydecker held up his end of the bargain, they'd be able to dip into Max's memories and find out what the hell Sandeman had planned for her.

Max remembered the feverish dream she had in the TC hospital: Normal and the packages, Cindy and Dr. Shankar talking about Logan's virus, and the old office with all the books and the old man and the little boy. She'd never seen that office before. Or had she? Whatever it was, she figured it wasn't her own memory, because she wasn't a little girl in it, and because she didn't interact with the little boy.

"So what was your dream about?" Alec asked, gently pushing her chin up to prepare the next photo. "Was it a memory?"

"I don't think so. It was like I came into the office at the end of a meeting – yours, I guess. I couldn't see Sandeman the whole time."

Alec hummed inquisitively and snapped the photo. "Right arm," he called.

Max adjusted her left arm to cover her breasts and offered her right arm. "The room seemed familiar, though. Some of the books. The layout. Like maybe I'd been there before, just not _then._"

Tapping the button his phone a couple times, Alec released her arm. "Okay, other arm."

Max shifted again and couldn't help but chuckle at how Alec seemed to blush as she tried to keep herself covered. "Is this as awkward for you as it is for me?"

He looked straight into her eyes. "It's torture," he ceded, a sexy smile twitching up the corners of his mouth.

Alec's little divulged truth made her smile sweetly. She leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on his lips.

With a frustrated groan, Alec rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. "You sure we can't just skip this whole thing and go on vacation?"

Max's smile stretched wide. "I think we're in for some turbulence," she said, jutting her chin forward to brush her lips against his again.

Alec hummed approvingly. "Let's hope so." As he kissed her more, he considered pulling her into his lap and sliding his hands up her smooth back, but just as he reached forward, his cell rang. Again.

Breaking off their kiss, he groaned in frustration. "Back to work for us," he said, defeated, willing his body to follow his brain's orders.

* * *

Mole, Luke, Dalton, Joshua and just about every other male in command – and one female, Adi – all huddled around Dix's monitor, staring at the pictures of Max's runes. Specifically, they were staring at her chest.

The actual illustrated woman in question stood behind them, shoulder-to-shoulder with Alec, wondering if they had no sense of humility. "It's like I'm a fricken side show," Max said.

The group sounded a chorus of noise as one picture came up onscreen. This one had Max's chest, front and center, her hands each covering her breasts.

"An inch from death!" Luke said, but not quietly enough that neither Max nor Alec could hear.

"Okay guys," Alec began, moving through the crowd, "and Adi. That's enough ogling. Unless you have a scientific reason to be here, get your asses back to task."

With minor behest, the soldiers dispersed, leaving Dix and Joshua.

"Father's message," Joshua said, rising to his full height and turning to face Max.

Max stepped forward, feeling as if, despite her fully-clothed-ness, she was still on parade. "How do you know that?"

He smiled proudly. "Joshua just know." He nodded. "Max special."

Max refrained from saying what was on her mind. Joshua didn't deserve to be yelled at just because no one understood what was happening to her. Dejectedly, she looked at the columns of runes on her arms in the pictures on Dix's screen.

Sensing her discomfort, Joshua approached Max. "It's okay, Little Fella. Father's a good man. Doesn't hurt people." He seemed to struggle to find the right words to put Max at ease. "Message probably good."

_Probably. _Max rolled the word around in her mind. Probably wasn't a great word, but she recognized Joshua's support.

If it was a good message, why have it crop up on her body, and would the runes be there forever?

Dix stood up suddenly and faced Max. "Don't worry, Max. We'll figure out what it says."

"Use your discretion," Alec warned. There was no room for interpretation in his command.

As he ushered Max out of the Network, he asked, "You sure you're ready for this?"

Max gave him a sarcastic smirk. "Does it even matter?"

Pushing through the double doors, Alec brought his arm up to hold the door open for Max.

* * *

Entering the makeshift jail was tough for Max, especially given the slew of bull they'd been through lately. It was like inviting a giant middle finger to agree to even speak with Lydecker, let alone not murder the man for his past transgressions.

"Max," Lydecker said, brows arching in earnest as he listened for her location. With the blindfold securely in place, he couldn't see anything past his own closed eyelids.

Max turned to face Alec and gave him a chilling, haunted look. Alec ushered her forward. She needed to face her enemy.

"Um," Max started.

Alerted to her location, Lydecker whipped his blonde-white head in her direction and kept his mouth shut.

Max folded her arms quasi-nervously. _What do you say to the man, your former CO, your former nightmare, the bane of your freedom?_ "Um, I guess first… Thank you for getting us out of that bunker."

Alec's head snapped toward Max's. He had not expected that.

"And also for helping Alec at the warehouse." Max snuck a lopsided grin to Alec before her gratitude died on her tongue. "But I'm not naïve. What's in this for you?"

Lydecker pressed his lips in a thin line. Of course he should have expected Max's precaution. He had never really given her a reason (since her escape, anyway) to trust him. "I know you don't trust me. I don't blame you. But believe me when I say I am here to help protect you. Why else would I throw myself at your mercy?"

He waited for her response.

Alec could see the cogs moving in Max's machine. She remembered every interaction she'd had with her former CO since her escape. Despite his own willingness to work with Lydecker and make use of the Colonel's resources, he knew Max needed more convincing arguments.

A knock came at the door to announce the presence already entering the room. Joshua carried in a small ice chest. "Max," he greeted, offering her the container. "He had this."

Accepting the cooler, Max set it down on the table and lifted the lid. She wasn't sure what to expect – maybe something bloody or ticking or some kind of booby trap, but all she saw were a couple of IV bags of blue-green liquid.

Joshua understood the tension in the room and refrained from speaking to Lydecker. Instead, he addressed Max again. "Cleared at Med Bay. Father used this."

Alec was confused. The blue-green formula was a chemical used to assist memory retrieval through hypnosis. What could Sandeman have used this for back when Joshua was a boy? "To remember?" he asked hesitantly.

"To forget," Joshua supplied.

"Forget what?" Max asked, her attention fully rapt by Joshua's comment.

Joshua hung his head. He understood his father's actions better than anyone, and he had the fewest words to describe the sorrowed, pained, and desperately haunting images of his father's deepest betrayals. What he had done to his own sons he'd done out of love, to try to help them survive; Joshua knew it like he knew his own heart. Sandeman was a scientist, and he had been filled with an unusually profound appreciation for life, and not just for those breeding cultists poisoned by power.

Joshua remembered, after his DNA became DNA Plus, seeing his father in the basement with a younger Lydecker sitting at his side, having the blue-green solution administered to him. His father was seated in a child's school desk, his right arm face up on the lacquered wood-top arm rest, and his left arm dangling lazily to the side, his knuckles brushing against the floor. Lydecker had taken care of him.

"Everything," Joshua finally answered.

Sensing Joshua's sorrow, Max squeezed his arm.

"It's like an amplifier for hypnosis," Lydecker said. "You want to forget, or you want to remember." He gritted his teeth, as if he, too, had inner demons to wrestle. After a moment, he asked, "How bad is it?"

Max regarded him with more suspicion.

"The markings?" he continued. "How far have they spread?"

Max's eyes went wide and she glared at Alec, whose hands immediately went up in defense, then at Joshua, whose shoulders lifted. Neither had told Lydecker about the runes.

Their silence confirmed the older man's suspicions. "If you're the one, Max, I assume the runes have started."

Wondering if there was no end to this freak show, and having her curiosity piqued, Max stomped toward him and pulled the blindfold down. It would no longer be of use. "And you know about that how?"

Lydecker took a moment to look at Max. Dressed head-to-toe in black, and leaving her hair down, it was as if she was intentionally covering the affliction. A few of the marks peeked out from her shirt, but he knew they'd remain a secret to him.

Shifting his stare to Alec, Lydecker explained. "Something was bugging me after we went through your session, so I hooked myself up."

"And?" Alec probed. He figured it had to be pertinent, since Lydecker knew about Max's runes.

Max stood still, arms crossed and waiting.

"He remembers," Joshua said quietly.

Lydecker studied the canine-enhanced transhuman.

"Remembers what?" Max was losing her patience. If Joshua knew something about all this, why hadn't he told her? Why had he waited this whole time to bring information forward? Irritated, she shifted her dark scowl to Lydecker.

"He was just a boy, Max, he doesn't remember," the former Lieutenant began. "Not what or why, just that Sandeman asked me to dose him and I did. To make sure he buried the information about the prophesy and his 'special one' so deep that even he wouldn't think there was anything to remember. And then I had to treat myself, just in case the breeding cult found out what he was doing."

Max unfolded her arms. "So what did you remember?"

Taking a deeper breath, Lydecker shifted in his seat, gripping the arm rests to which his hands had been tightly bound. "Like I told Alec, there was a reason I was in charge of your unit. One of you was special – he didn't say which one, just that I was entrusted with your care. If I could make all of you top soldiers, you'd have the optimum chance against the coming events."

"You said 'prophesy,'" Alec reminded.

"I don't know much about it," Lydecker confessed. "It was written in a language I can't read."

Max pulled her sleeve up, exposing the columns on her arm. "This language?"

He looked at her arm. "I think so. Sandeman said one of his children would present the markings when tested, and that child would be the one foretold in the prophesy."

"But you don't know what the prophesy said?" Max asked desperately. It all seemed so convenient, him showing up but knowing nothing.

Alec stepped forward. Lydecker still knew more than he let on. "So when you went under, what did you remember?"

Lydecker looked to Alec, almost as if asking permission, and Alec nodded, as if giving it.

"I saw you, Max," he said, looking into her eyes. "And I was administering the drug so you could forget."

"Forget what?"

Alec chuckled. _Exactly._ "If you knew that, we wouldn't need him."

Max clenched her jaw. If Lydecker had worked with Sandeman, and Joshua and Alec had both worked with Lydecker, and Alec and Max both had partial memories of Sandeman, then maybe Lydecker wasn't quite the demon she remembered. And maybe there were more truths to be uncovered about the prophesy. But it pissed her off to no end that Alec had lied to her. She glared at him, hot blood rushing through her veins.

Alec knew he'd just landed himself in deep trouble. "Max, can I talk to you for a sec?" he asked, lifting his arms in a direction out of earshot of her former CO.

Begrudgingly, Max followed him.

"Max, I'm sorry," he said, placing a hand on her arm.

"You planned this… you lied to me!" she said, brows turned down. "I thought we were – I don't know –"

"We are –" he argued. "You never would have even considered it if I had asked. I'm sorry, Max. Punch me or kick my ass or whatever, but do it later. We have to do this. We have no choice. He's part of the puzzle whether you like it or not, and he has ways to help us get answers."

Max narrowed her stare.

"I asked him to surrender to us once he acquired the serum, because you have to go under."

Max rolled her eyes as if this was the least viable option ever presented to her in her whole life. "This sucks," she said, resigned to the plan. He was right and it infuriated her, because yet again, she was not in control of her own life. She turned back to Lydecker and walked toward the man to free him of his restraints.

Lydecker gave Alec a quasi-grateful, quasi-apologetic look.

* * *

"So what do we do?" Max asked, laying still on the cold Med Bay table, IV in her arm already. Alec sat in the chair next to her. Lydecker prepared the blue-green liquid across the room.

"How will I know where to go?" she asked, when no one answered her first question.

"You'll know," Alec said confidently. "And Deck'll guide you through."

"How long will I be under?"

Alec smiled disbelievingly. "Are you nervous?"

"No."

Pushing hair out of her face, Alec watched her expression as he stared into her eyes. "I'm here. I won't let anything happen to you."

"Yeah, 'cause if you do, I'll make sure to break your ass in half."

Alec's mouth twisted up at the corner. "You realize it's already in half, right? I mean, the best you could do was in thirds or fourths, and even then –"

Max rolled her eyes and smacked him with the IV-less arm.

"Ow! Jeez, Max. You really should try to conserve your energy, you know, what with the imminent ass-breaking you've just promised looming on the horizon. You're gonna need your strength. Ow!"

She had hit him in the arm again, watching the playful twinkle in his eyes return.

"Just watch the moneymaker, okay?" he asked, gesturing to his face.

Max stared into his eyes and both were silent, reverent, communicating their thoughts and fears in stares.

"I already went through it. You'll be fine," he said so low Lydecker wouldn't hear.

Lydecker made his way over to the table with the blue-green bag. "Ready Max?"

Max nodded curtly. No, she was not ready. Everything was happening so fast.

As the older man attached the pouch and adjusted the drip, Max's eyes fluttered shut. Lydecker began speaking and soon thereafter, Max's mind had taken her over ten years back in time.


	18. Day Five Abv (Pt 4): Deep Under

As soon as Max's eyes fluttered shut, she drifted into a dreamlike hypnosis.

Alec looked to Lydecker expectantly.

"Where are you, Max?" he asked, seated on the other side of the table. He watched her brows twitch in confusion.

"I don't know," she responded. Just under her lids, they could see Max's eyes moving, taking in the dreamscapes. After a few seconds, she let go of the breath she'd been holding and closed her mouth.

From the look of her and from his own experience, Lydecker knew she was watching a memory. The question was whether it was a memory pertinent to what was happening to her in the real world. Suddenly, a tiny smile framed her lips.

Hiding his surprise, Alec wondered what had caused the silent bliss. A moment later, her smile faded.

"I'm in a hallway," she mumbled.

"What kind of hallway? Back at Manticore?" asked Lydecker, watching her face for any sign of answer. He watched, but she didn't answer him.

Alec felt her hand twitch in his. Idly, he wondered if he spasmed while under.

"I saw our escape in '09," Max murmured, brows raised with pride.

Lydecker nodded and leaned back. "Okay, keep going back."

After another couple of silent minutes, and after seeing Max's hypnotic expression changing to a hardened one, he recognized compartmentalization. "Where are you, soldier?"

"Um, just another memory," she responded faintly. "Not the right memory."

Her hand relaxed a bit in Alec's and he detected a slight flush in her cheeks. "She's blushing," he said, immediately wishing he hadn't said it out loud.

Again, Max's face returned to a calm expression. Lydecker breathed a sigh of frustration. Max was far more guarded than he thought she'd be. She resisted his urging her forward. He kept his fingertips at her pulse point.

Suddenly, she gasped and her hands twitched closed in fists. Her eyes squeezed shut and she clenched her jaw. Her legs twitched, but she made no further movement.

"What was that?" Lydecker asked. "Your pulse is up. Are you running?"

"Nothing," Max said. "Just a nightmare. I took care of it."

Flustered, Alec sat back in his seat. She was having a nightmare in the middle of hypnotic regression? More like reliving her past. He was about to suggest to Lydecker that they stop this, remove the IV and bring Max out of it, but she interrupted him.

"Oh my god."

At her exclamation of surprise, he felt even more like disconnecting her, but he knew she'd kick his ass for cutting her off from something so important. She needed this to get answers. He needed this to get answers.

"Where are you?" the Colonel asked.

"In an operating room."

Lydecker narrowed his eyes. "Who's the patient?"

"I don't know. I think it's my mother."

Alec's eyes widened. _Jesus, how far back did she go? How far back _could_ she go?_

Her twitches became more aggressive, and though Lydecker reminded her that she was in a safe place where no one could hurt her, her limbs spasmed as if she was dream-fighting.

"Max, you can control this," Lydecker said gently. When Max's prone form didn't respond, he looked to Alec, urging him to say something, to help ground her.

"Maxie, we're getting worried about you. You okay in there? What's happening?"

She didn't respond to Alec either.

Lydecker leaned in closer to her. "Max, focus on my voice and think about Sandeman," he guided, rubbing her hand between his gently.

As Max's body seemed to calm down, she fell limp in their hands. It appeared as though she'd fallen asleep. No more twitches, no more movement under her lids.

Alec wondered if she had blocked herself off from the memory or maybe blacked out from a synapse in her brain telling her she'd been hurt in whatever fight she'd been having. He looked nervously to Lydecker.

"She's okay," the former CO said. "She's moving on."

* * *

When Max opened her eyes again, she was surprised to see Joshua sitting at her side, his freckled nose in a book on Physics.

"A little light reading?" she asked, barely above a whisper.

Joshua shut his book and smiled at his friend. "Little Fella sleep like cat," he said, before excitedly standing and heading toward the double doors.

She raised herself onto her elbows and swung her legs around in a gradual effort to slowly sit up. "Imagine that."

"Alec!" Joshua called out, sticking his head out into the hallway.

Within moments, Alec reentered the room and made his way to Max as Joshua hung back by the door to give them a bit of privacy. He remembered how his father had acted after his dose of the liquid. He was so overwhelmed with anxiety that he was sure something was going to happen and that he needed to get out of Manticore before it did.

"Hey, how ya' doin'?" he asked, sitting across from her. "You look tired." He could tell just by how she was sitting, sagged down and generally droopy, that going under had taken a lot out of her, but if he couldn't tell just by her posture, there was also her pallid appearance, sunken eyes, and a lack of spicy zest in her general behavior.

"Thanks a lot." She deadpanned and blinked slowly, some of her hair falling forward. She took mental stock of her body, a kind of worried grimace affixing itself to her face.

"The most beautiful tired…?" Alec trailed, raising his hands to her face. He wanted to see her pupils. It seemed important to somehow check her for injuries, although he couldn't figure out what injuries he'd be able to see just by looking at her. When she finally focused on his stare, he took a relieved breath. He reached forward to sweep the hair over her shoulder. "How did it go, you know, in the memories?"

The truth was that she did feel tired. Very tired. The mental catalog of the memories… well, she had no way to explain it, but it was almost as if she had relived all of the emotions and anxiety from each event as it occurred. Because her brain was working hard to unlock its memory, it convinced the body it had gone through it all again – the pride, falling through the ice, the heat and the fights, the blood and fire. Her brow furrowed as she attempted to find the words to describe how the little excursion down memory highway felt. "Tiring," she finally said. "I feel like I've been hit by a semi and dragged for a couple hundred miles."

Joshua made his way over. "Little Fella slept through dinner."

"I what?"

Alec let his hands fall down to hers and motioned for her to stand.

Weakly, Max let herself off the table and faltered when her boots hit the ground. Alec instinctively reached out to help steady her by her elbows. "Really took a lot out of you, huh?"

Max nodded.

Alec smiled as they walked out of the room. "Let's get you some food. You haven't eaten all day, I'm guessing."

"All day? What time is it?"

"About eight."

_About eight? _Max repeated mentally. "I feel like I've been under for the hardest fifteen minutes of my life. Are you telling me I've been under for four hours?"

"Yeah, well, we figured something happened to you in there, 'cause all of the sudden, you were asleep."

Surprised, Max looked over to Joshua. "I slept for four hours?!"

Joshua smiled. "Little Fella sleep like cat," he repeated.

"And you didn't wake me?"

Joshua lumbered behind her. "Couldn't."

Max looked to Alec.

"Deck said let you sleep it off. Going that far under… must have been a doozy. We wanted to make sure you got the rest you needed."

_We._ Max was feeling a little lightheaded. "Where is Lydecker?"

"He offered to let us lock him up until you woke up, but turns out he can make a mean spaghetti."

Maybe out of sheer exhaustion, Max laughed. "You're kidding, right?"

He stopped in front of the Mess Hall's double doors and turned to face her. "I never kid about Italian."

* * *

As Max twirled a few noodles on the old (but newly acquired) silverware, color had started to return to her previously ashen face. Apparently, Lydecker did make a compelling spaghetti. She watched across the picnic-style bench as Alec slurped his last few noodles into his mouth. He had folded up the cuffs of his button-up shirt to prevent the sauce from getting on him, and was doing a respectable job.

He regarded her with a confident stare. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?"

He set down his fork. "Like I have a wooden leg supporting this endurance model's physique, into which I file 'seconds' and scotch and junk food with reckless abandon?"

Max smiled weakly and looked to Alec's left where Joshua sat hunched over his place, trying his darnedest to use the fork the way Max had been using hers. He grunted in frustration and abandoned the fork in order to use his fingers to pick up tangled clumps of noodles and drop them into his mouth from above.

"So, you wanna tell me about your memories?" Alec asked.

Max looked to Lydecker, his hair net and stained apron a hilarious antithesis of his scarier, former position; he was a black-ops government agent with a mind to keep his hair out of their meager food supply.

Alec detected her hesitation. "It's up to you, you know. If you want to tell him."

Taking a deep breath, she looked back to Alec. They held their stare a moment, Joshua's lip-smacking their only soundtrack.

"Lydecker good. Father trust."

_Of course,_ Max thought. In a way, she trusted Joshua's instincts. After all, he was a good judge of character. The canine in his cocktail may also have been a contributing factor to his ability to judge someone's character. "Okay," she conceded.

Alec pursed his lips a moment. "I told you before, and I meant it. I'm never gonna let anything happen to you."

She gave him a half smile, hoping it wouldn't come to that kind of decision.

Joshua cleared their plates and relieved Lydecker at the counter. Alec took the opportunity to sit next to Max, hoping his closer proximity would help alleviate some of the stress that going out on a limb and trusting her former CO created.

* * *

"Not a whole lot to tell," Max started, once Lydecker was seated across from them.

_She'd found herself walking down a dimly lit white hallway, trying to be inconspicuous despite her all-black attire. She passed several wall sconces before she realized the hallway seemed to be circular in nature. Continuing along, she noticed how the building seemed run-down, its walls' dull whitish paint cracking and peeling near the ceiling and baseboards, and the lights which lined the ceiling flickering as if a brown out was imminent. _

_No one else was visible in the hallway, and as she moved she came upon a solid metal door with a scuffed-up name plate stating 'Compartment 4526'._

_Nothing about this place looked or felt familiar. This wasn't Manticore or her old apartment building with Kendra or Original Cindy, or any of the buildings she'd visited in Terminal City. She wondered where the hell she was. _

_There was no way to know to which room this door opened, but she twisted the knob anyway and pushed on the metal. The door swung inward to reveal the underground bunker, fully-equipped with the iron bars the two cots, and Alec and herself. _

_She watched, and as if it was a play of exactly what had happened, the buzzing started. Then the fast loud beeping. Then the bright light illuminated the cell._

_Oh my god, she thought, worried she may have to close her eyes and ears, or else trip another seizure in memory. Within a few seconds, she realized nothing in the room could affect her in the hallway. Standing in the door jamb, Max watched the scene play out. Alec tried to warn her. He chewed the gum and crossed the cell. She watched her past self start to seize, and the past Alec pulled her to him and gently lowered her to the floor, where he pushed the gum in her ear and covered her eyes and – was he humming? _

_She knew time had passed and Memory Alec had carried her to her cot, pushed her tongue back into her mouth, removed the gum from her ear, and let her rest. He returned to his cot and lay down, facing the Hypnotic Max standing in the doorjamb._

_Realizing he couldn't see her, Hypnotized Max sighed and let go of the breath she'd been holding. She watched the expression on his face floor with relief, and felt a small smile form on her lips. _

_Then, the Memory Max was lying next to Alec's cot, asleep, when it started again. Despite his lack of gum, Alec covered her ears instead of his own, and waited out the sensory overload._

_Pulling the door shut, Max silently thanked Alec for his help._

"I was in some kind of hallway. Felt like a tightening spiral hallway, with numbered compartments along the way. Each one like a door to a memory." She looked up but couldn't bring herself to look at Lydecker.

The older man listened, enthralled by her descriptions. He'd known the memories would come back to each host in a way conducive to their own personalities and defenses, but it saddened him a bit to think that even her most personal of memories were locked away in 'compartments.' It was proof of how deeply and efficiently her military training had damaged her. How deeply his job had damaged her.

"You said you saw your escape?" Alec asked, trying to ease the tension he felt building between Max and the Colonel. She nodded.

_As she crept further down the hallway, she came upon another door. When she turned the knob and let the door swing open, she saw a familiar event. It was 2009 and her unit was in the middle of escaping Manticore. She watched her younger self run barefoot through the snow and onto the iced-over water and then fall through the thin layer to her freedom. _

_In the distance, past some glowing blue snow, Hypnotized Max saw two taller figures running away from the facility in the other direction. Max smiled proudly in the doorjamb as the image before her warmed her sense of survival. Memory Lydecker came into view and her smile faded as his image conveyed his disappointment at their unit's escape._

_Knowing this was the end of this vision, Hypnotized Max pulled the handle and closed the door._

"Nothing special," Max explained. "We all split up, just like I remember. Only difference was I could kinda see around a little. You know, not necessarily from my own perspective." She paused to reflect on the movie-like memory.

_Walking further down the hall, she felt the circle of its design getting smaller. Just ten steps led her to a third room. Its door had a small, rectangular barred hole in it. It was her Manticore cell. She stepped closer and peeked into the cell._

_From the barcode on the neck in front of her, she knew it was Alec, and from the nakedness of his back, she knew Memory Max had just kicked him into the door. In those few moments he hadn't been watching her, Memory Max was checking him out on the sly._

_Sure do make 'em pretty, she'd thought, watching Memory Max try to school her face and improv a witty rejoinder at Alec's expense. She saw the way Memory Alec's lips moved when he repeated her name. Kinda dangerous. Kinda sexy. Distantly, she thought Alec would never let her hear the end of it if she ever told him about it._

"I saw my Manticore cell," Max had said simply.

"Your cell from your recapture?" Alec probed further. "You didn't have a cell as a kid – we had barracks until the heats started, but you were already gone."

Max hoped he didn't delve further, or remember she had been blushing, because she didn't want to repeat that he was its cause: that it had been because of Memory Alec's lips caressing her name like they had which caused her to color, that it had been because he had informed her they'd been assigned as breeding partners that she was checking him out at all. "It was the wrong memory anyway," she said, looking down.

Lydecker nodded, urging her to continue. She really needed guidance through this maze, but wouldn't accept it while under. At least not from him.

_Continuing down the hallway, Max felt the circle get a bit smaller. One of the light bulbs had blown out, leaving a part of the hall shady. A wash of ominous darkness came over her as she saw another compartment. 4525. She felt frightened but didn't understand why, until she opened the door. Before her stood her foster father from when she was fourteen. Teen Max was flushed, maybe from oncoming heat, and was hiding in the closet, panicked and confused._

_She remembered what had happened even without having to see it again. He had approached the closet, discovered Teen Max, lured her out of the closet, and put a hand on her hip. As if by second nature, Teen Max pulled a Manticore maneuver on him, breaking both his nose and his foot, and hightailed it out of there without a possession to her designation. Or her name._

Max pressed her lips together. She really didn't want to talk about this memory. "The next one was from my foster home when I was fourteen." Her hands fidgeted in her lap. She regretted having only wounded him. She shouldn't have had any mercy for that child molester, but to have barely kept her wits about her on the verge of heat was a partial success.

Alec reached out to her fumbling fingers and gave them a squeeze. He remembered what her physical body was doing during that memory, and it wasn't watching a double rainbow with childlike amusement. He remembered she had said she took care of it, and he grinded his teeth to keep the feeling of general anger towards a faceless stranger from exploding its way out of his body.

_The door disappeared into the wall, and as she moved forward, the hallway's ceiling turned into a blue sky with a few clouds. Items cropped up seemingly out of nowhere – a courtyard with few trees, cement walkways, and eventually, small children._

_By their faces, she could see it was her unit that had been assembled for maneuvers. Her childlike self was standing at ease, waiting for instruction from the drill instructor. She had started shaking._

_Max remembered having been afraid. Ben had seen the beginnings of her seizure and had whispered to her not to let them see her shake. He pretended to have a seizure so the drill sergeant wouldn't notice Max as he escorted the child to med bay. The longer she stood the more Child Max shook._

_Out of nowhere, a young boy approached Child Max and held out his hand. She opened her hand and watched as the boy dropped a few pills into it. Though the boy had his back to the adult Max, who was watching this all unfold from a distance, she could see his barcode. It was Alec. She wondered why she didn't remember this before. She wondered if it was one of the memories erased by the drugs and hypnosis. If so, then why? What was the harm in Alec giving her his seizure meds? And come to think of it, why hadn't Alec ever mentioned it?_

Max wasn't keen on telling Lydecker how Alec broke protocol as a child to give her his medication, so she steamrolled into her next memory. "And then I was in that operating room and someone killed my mother. I don't know who – he grabbed me from behind somehow, but he shot her while she was giving birth to me, I think."

Lydecker and Alec shared shocked expressions. "I don't know if anyone can really go that far back, Max. Are you sure it was your mother?" Lydecker asked.

"Pretty sure," she said. "That's what it felt like anyway. I mean, I guess it could just be a nightmare, but it felt real." Mentally, she set the memory aside so she could continue.

_Her legs moved her forward without her consent, and as the hall seemed to get narrower and its circle tighter, she came to another door. Compartment 4522._

"_You don't have to do this," Lydecker said. But it was Memory Lydecker, not real Lydecker. His voice was coming from behind the door._

_Taking a deep breath and feeling utterly unprepared for what could be in the room, Max reached for the door knob._

"_Don, I need your help," said another man. Sandeman._

_Twisting the knob, Max pushed open the door and saw Lydecker leaning over Sandeman. He sat with his back to her so that all she could see was his dark brown (but graying) hair. Some part of it felt very familiar._

"_Is this really necessary?" Lydecker asked, preparing the IV with the bag of blue-green liquid._

"_Yes. If they find out who she is, she'll be hunted, and I'm not willing to take that chance. Administer Forget-Me-Not."_

"The next one was when you were giving Sandeman Forget-Me-Not. I must've been next if that's what I remember of it. Sandeman said if they found out who _she_ was-"

"-She'd be hunted," Lydecker finished. He remembered this one. Sandeman had him administer the protocol and wouldn't be talked out of it.

Max shifted uncomfortably in her seat, as though her own skin was irritated. She took a deep breath and shut her eyes, the final memory cutting images into her mind.

Alec squeezed her hand again, rubbing circles with his thumb. He sensed how taxing this was.

"And the last thing I remember is being in a hellish cell. Or maybe a burning building or something." She opened her eyes. "There was blood everywhere, and broken glass, and there was this voice seeping through it all saying something about a gift. Like maybe someone had a gift for me –" She panicked, turning toward Alec as tears sprang up in her eyes. "How are blood and fire and hell gifts? And how is that a gift for me?"

Alec put his arm around her and pulled her toward him as she willed herself not to cry from the world's imbalance. "It'll be okay, Maxie."

Lydecker matter-of-factly asked, "Is there more?"

_Cold, emotionless Lydecker,_ Max thought. "I felt like I was burning from the inside out. That what you wanted to hear?"

He sat back. "There's more. I know he explained it to you, you just weren't under long enough." He nodded as if he'd just figured out the puzzle, as if Sandeman himself had set it all up that way. "Can you go back under tomorrow?"

Max stood up, disengaging from Alec, and stared coldly at her former CO. "Go to hell!"

Lydecker looked expectantly at Alec while Max stormed out of Mess. "Soldier, if you want this plan of yours to work, I suggest you go talk some sense into her."

* * *

He found her at the gym showers. He'd had an idea of where to look for her, and followed and picked up the trail of clothes which led to the men's locker room showers. Didn't do much to protect her from prying eyes, but less than half of the night models used the gym so late anyway. It was the only place she could go for a shower, because the pipes in the women's locker room showers had rusted throughout.

"Max, you in here?" he called, his voice echoing through the communal shower as if projected by an amp in a concert hall. He knew she was there but tried to give her the privacy he thought she may have desired. "I'm alone." He set her clothes down on the bench.

"Second to last on your right," Max called out weakly.

He grabbed a towel and hurried to her stall to make sure she was okay. When he came up on the partial wall, he slowed, seeing she had knelt directly under the shower's spray, allowing the water to cascade over her body. It helped create a curtain of hair over her back.

Seeing her completely naked scared him. There were still more runes. Her legs. Her hips. Her feet.

He noticed there was no steam coming from the water. "You taking a cold shower?"

She nodded, refusing to face him.

"Why?"

* * *

Back at Command, Dix excitedly explained that he had news, and only after Alec prodded him to continue did they find out what kind of news it was. Neutral.

"Well, I'm getting closer to zeroing in on the original language, but what's curious is how the coding units have started discovering illusions within the columns." He smiled with nervous energy, and proudly, as if that was enough information to understand why he was so proud.

"The hell does that mean?" Alec asked. He, himself, had excelled at coding and Dix was talking nonsense. He looked to Max, who appeared to be on the verge of passing out from exhaustion.

Dix heaved a sigh. "Means the tattoos on Max may contain more than just words."

Max sighed, too. _This sucks._ She reached out one arm in a partial stretch.

"Okay, why don't you just let us know when you have something solid?"

Dix nodded. "Well, I have something else." It was like a dangling treat on the end of a stick held out in front of a mule.

Alec gave him an impatient stare.

"Got a tip on that old scientist, Fink… he's moving toward Europe. We're keeping eyes on the coasts. Might catch a lead."

Max's lids drifted closed. What was with the tiredness?

"Maxie."

Sharply, she opened her eyes to Alec's waiting stare.

"Come on, Maxie. You need some sleep." He reached out for her hand but she eluded him.

She used every bit of will to open her eyes just to counter. "No, I'm fine."

He smiled. Even in her state of mind, she was still obstinate. "Okay, well, we're going to my apartment so we can get some sleep."

_We? _"Oh, you're tired?"

He huffed. "Max, you're exhausted. I'm vetoing your little expression of authority." She was going to argue, but he didn't let her get a word in edgewise. "Quit stalling. You're like a little kid who doesn't want to go to bed because she thinks everyone will have all the fun without her and there'll be no more left when she wakes up. We're going, and if you put up any more of a fight, I'm throwing you over my shoulder. Now I'm asking you to please get some sleep. Conserve. Rest."

* * *

At his TC apartment, Alec emptied his pockets onto the nightstand and turned toward Max. He toed off his boots and unbuttoned his shirt. Taking it off, he threw it to the dresser top and pulled some sweatpants from one of the drawers.

"Got any for me?" Max asked, yawning as she saw Alec heading for the bathroom. She cringed slightly at the bruises, lacerations, and burns on his back and arms.

"In the dresser," he called. "Wear whatever you want." He shut the bathroom door.

By the time he'd changed and made it back to the bedroom, he saw Max snuggled up in his bed, eyes closed and with the comforter pulled up to her neck.

It was a sight that stopped him short. Her face had never seemed so… unburdened. Despite everything, it was as if she'd finally worn herself out, and her body decided she was taking a siesta, no matter what.

Plus, he liked seeing her in his bed.

"I'm awake," she mumbled.

He made his way toward the bed and leaned down to give her a chaste kiss on the forehead. "Go to sleep." He began to walk away when she spoke up.

"Don't go."

He turned back toward her. She was sitting up and that's when he saw that she was wearing his shirt – the one he'd just taken off.

"I have something to tell you," she started again, distracted by the raw skin on his feet and wrists.

Alec neared the bed. Max folded back covers to let him in next to her, no bothering to mention she had more runes on her legs. He could see them, and they weren't going anywhere.

Seeing her bare legs made him swallow a little harder. He was too embarrassed to tell her those little runes were kind of sexy.

He slid into bed gingerly, so as not to aggravate the wounds on his feet, and asked, "Everything okay?" He thought about the question. "I mean, relatively?"

Max stared at him for a moment. Her eyes danced about nervously, seeing the rope burns on his wrists again, before she leaned forward and kissed him sweetly on the lips. "Thank you."

He mistakenly began to explain that it was no big deal. Anyone could see she needed to rest.

"No," she interrupted. "Not that."

His expression remained puzzled.

"For the bunker."

He nodded minutely. _So that was what that weird thing was at the beginning of her regression_. "You were seizing. I just did what anyone would've."

"Not at their own expense," she said, raising her hand to his ear and running her fingertips along the ridge before pulling gently on his ear lobe. She didn't want to stop touching him, but he had a look in his eyes of general discomfort. She dropped her hand, believing she might have been causing it.

How could he explain to her what he'd to just to keep her safe? He stared past her into the distance. His closet was back there, but really he was sorting through his plan, trying to figure out if he should tell her about it.

She leaned forward and kissed him again, tenderly. Or maybe weakly – he wasn't sure, but he wanted to believe she had deliberately chosen tenderness. He didn't want her current physical, emotional, and mental states to short-circuit her brain and cause another bout of the shakes, so he ended their brilliant kiss as softly as possible.

"And that was for the courtyard." Her eyes were so sincere; he thought he might actually be the person she thought he was.

Alec searched his memory, but he couldn't remember the last time he and Max had been in any kind of courtyard together. _Unless… _"I'm not sure… maybe it's some other lucky bastard who's supposed to be the recipient of that particular thank you, because-"

"No, it was you. Back at Manticore, we were kids, and Ben was shaking and the guards took him away. But he didn't have the shakes, I did."

Alec took this in. He remembered Ben saying not to let them see her shake, and she wasn't confusing him with Ben, so what exactly had he done for her?

"Ben, he was just acting so they wouldn't notice me. But you… you showed up. Must've been a mistake, because we weren't allowed time with or even knowledge of our twins. You gave me your meds."

He explanation was so simple, and though he didn't remember giving her the meds – he had woken from his hypnosis before that, or maybe it had been tortured out of him in Psy-Ops long ago – he was surprised at how much it meant to her now. What could he say to her in response? 'You probably needed them' seemed like such a lame response, but 'you're welcome' seemed inappropriate, considering he couldn't remember the act of kindness itself. He let the silence permeate the room. And then the corners of his mouth twitched up.

"Just how grateful are you?"

Max playfully hit him and looked to him with a seriousness of which he hadn't grasped. "Ask me tomorrow morning," she teased. She sank against him, resting her head on his chest. She floated a gentle hand on his chest and absentmindedly caressed one of his burns, realizing yet again what he'd gone through for her.

Alec leaned back and curled an arm around her, pressing her head to his heart. "Max, can I ask you something?"

He felt some relief in the fact she wasn't giving him her soul-piercing stare, because if she answered in the negative, it just might sting a little less. She was relaxed against him, though, and it gave him some bravery. "Logan… he said…" But he couldn't continue.

Max tilted her chin to look up at Alec. She knew what he was asking. Pushing up at his chin, she said in a low voice, "Yes, I know about the cure." She kissed his neck, just at his Adam's apple, and he closed his eyes in pleasure, his heartbeat erratic with joy.

She might have been slipping off to dreamland, but Alec was pretty certain he wasn't going to get any sleep.


	19. Day Six Above (Pt 1): On the Verge

Previously: _She might have been slipping off to dreamland, but Alec was pretty certain he wasn't going to get any sleep._

* * *

Alec was wrong.

With Max's hand over his heart, he had eventually succumbed to the darkness, breathing evenly in a dreamless sleep while soft moonlight crept in through his bedroom window and bathed them both in its luminous beauty. At some point in his slumber, he'd turned around and Max had molded to his back, one hand wrapped around him.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been out before he felt her hand rubbing from his abs up to his chest, exploring his skin in warm caresses.

Carefully, he turned over to see her. Her eyes were bottomless in the darkness of the room, and as the glow of the moon reflected in the whites of her eyes, he felt suddenly awake. "Everything okay?" he asked, concerned she'd had a nightmare, or maybe a mental breakdown.

Silently, she nodded, blinking slowly.

Easing himself onto one elbow, he craned his neck to see if she had been injured somehow.

Max raised an open palm and caressed his cheek with her thumb. His hair had stuck up in several areas from lying on different parts of it, and as she ruffled her fingers through it, she stared into him, heavy-lidded. Alec leaned into her touch.

She took a breath as if mustering her courage, and sat up to graze his lips with hers. A simple kiss.

His eyes closed immediately, like tasting her lips again had sent him to heaven. When he opened them again, Max was staring up at him. He dared not move, else shatter the illusion.

To his surprise, she sat up, rocked forward to get her knees under her, and turned to face him. Splaying both hands on his bare chest, she gave a gentle push and laid him back down. She crawled up the bed next to him and swung a leg over his torso, settling herself in his lap.

His hands slid up her thighs, and he held the gaze of the smiling woman above him.

"It's morning."

Her husky whisper, coupled with the fact that she was pressed against him, made Alec shift under her, his hands unable to find the perfect place to stop.

Max sat back in his lap and reached both hands to unbutton the topmost button on his shirt, the shirt she was wearing. Then she moved to the next one, the small plastic piece slipping through the hole with ease.

Rapt, Alec felt himself harden underneath her with each button. Soon, his sweatpants would no longer hide his growing erection. In fact, they'd do the exact opposite.

Her eyebrows quirked as he bucked at her ministrations. She unbuttoned another button and Alec sucked in a sharp breath, grinding his teeth to restrain himself from ruining his shirt by ripping it off of her.

Agonizingly slow, she made her way to the last buttoned disc, pulled it through the hole, and let her arms return to her sides. She rested her hands on his, his hands still on her thighs. She remained still while he squeezed.

Just her sitting on his lap felt heady and sexy, and as he traced his thumbs up the runes on her thighs, he delved further under the tails of the shirt, until he was able to grip her hips, which was exactly the moment he realized she wasn't wearing any panties.

Max stared hard into him, as if he was her prey, and he sat up to raise his hands to the sides of her face so he could guide his lips to hers. A gentle tug at her bottom lip opened her mouth and as he slanted his lips over hers, she let out a moan deep in the back of her throat and repositioned herself so her legs spread a little further apart, pressing her core against him. He grunted with approval and Max's heart leapt at the effect she was having on him. Distantly, she felt that this was how it should be. Instinct.

Catching the scent of her arousal, Alec pulled back to stare into her eyes again, his own, heavy-lidded under her gaze. Letting go of her face, he pulled at the lapels of the shirt, pulling her toward him, and perused down past the material. He replaced the fabric quickly and looked back up at her like he'd just snuck a peek and got away with it, which made Max smile.

As their smiles faded, Alec nudged the lapels to the sides, baring her to him. He took in her skin, marked with columns upon columns of the tiny black runes, and saw the way her nipples hardened as his gaze glanced over them. If she was embarrassed by the text on her chest, she didn't show it. He hoped it was a testament to the trust they'd built.

Max dropped one shoulder forward to move her arm out of the sleeve, and Alec moved forward to kiss her collarbone. He moved languidly against her and helped her remove the rest of the shirt entirely, relishing that the whole of her skin was available to him – to surround himself with, to taste, to touch.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer, so close that she would be riding him already if his sweatpants weren't annoyingly in the way. Max let her head fall back and reached for his head. She needed to hang on, and she wanted to run her fingers through his hair.

Gently leaning her backward on the bed, Alec took a moment to really look at her. She was breathing a little harder and her knees were bent at his sides and her eyes were begging him for more, and he wondered if it was lame how badly he wanted to tell her none of those runes mattered, that she was the sexiest woman he knew, that she was the only woman for him.

Then, as he mentally wigged that he'd just called her the only woman for him, Max hooked her toes on his sweatpants and pushed them down his hips. His erection sprang forward and he groaned when she gripped and stroked him.

Bending so his sex slipped out of her reach, he took her nipple between his lips and pushed at it with his tongue. In response, Max arched her back, the unconscious effort meant to give him better access to her breasts, and as he teased her with his teeth, she breathed out, exasperated. His warm tongue flicked at the nub, and as he took a breath in, the air cooled the surface, making it stiffen again. Max whimpered and with tension in her fingers, stroked down on him again.

A loud knocking suddenly came at his door.

"They'll go away," Alec said in a transgenic whisper, forehead buried in her chest so that puffs of air played against her breasts. Max nodded and stifled a cry when he moved to her other nipple, lavishing it with a flicking tongue and pursed his lips around it.

The loud knocking came back, followed by a sheepish voice from the other side. "Alec? You and Max blaze!"

_Joshua!?_ they thought, simultaneously, looking at one another with surprise.

Alec sat back, much to Max's disappointment. "The building better be on fire," he assured her, staring lustfully into her eyes.

"Yes!" Joshua shouted.

_Great. Transgenic hearing._

"Building's on fire! You and Max must blaze!"

Alec looked to the front door as Max arched her back so she could see it too. They noticed a small dusting of smoke creeping under the door.

Max thought, but didn't say, how she thought they'd be able to make it out in a few minutes, or at least go out on the fire escape or something. She felt Alec's stare penetrate hers.

"Max." He seemed to read her mind. "When we do this, we're gonna need hours." He paused and considered some of the acts he had in mind. "Fuck, days."

* * *

The walk back to Command with as much of Alec's stuff as they could carry was awkward, not only because no one had mentioned their leaders had been getting acquainted nakedly, but also because it hadn't just been Joshua outside his door; it was Joshua and six other transgenics.

"Sorry I interrupted you gettin' busy," Joshua said, looking forward.

_Well, there that went._ Max blushed, but no one said anything.

On the upside, nine people could carry a lot of Alec's stuff, which, to his gratitude, included his two flat screen TVs and a box of his liquor. He and Max had stuffed Alec's three duffels with his clothes, and from there, only a few other items _needed _saving: his six-hundred thread count Egyptian cotton bedding, his small personal collection of weapons, his safe – which he was carrying and made everyone leave before retrieving, and his med kit. One of the transgenics carried a few of his tumblers and some mustard. (A man's gotta have his priorities, Alec had said.)

Max looked to the sky in an effort to alleviate her embarrassment, but it was overcast and gray as usual. The wind had started to pick up, and she thought it might rain in a few hours. It was Seattle after all, and Seattle was prone to rain.

At least she was feeling better. Less tired was good.

When they reached Command, Alec had everyone drop his belongings off in his office. As soon as Joshua set down one of Alex's boxes, he turned to go back to the burning apartment building and help the emergency response team try to extinguish the fire.

Max stopped by the coffee pot for some coffee.

"Movin' in?" Mole asked, his rifle slung against his shoulder as usual. It was as if, even in friendly territory, he always had to be ready for a fire fight.

"No choice but to burn down the old place; heard this place gets scrambled porn," came the snarky X5's retort. He set his safe down on the desk.

"Heard you were makin' some yourself," the lizard-man returned, clapping his friend on the shoulder. It earned him a couple of stifled snickers from the moving squad.

"Jealous?" Max said, walking up behind Mole. Alec's mouth fell open in surprise and then morphed into a smile. Max took a calculated drink from her mug.

Mole chewed his cigar. Thankfully, it wasn't possible for him to turn the shade of red he felt he had just turned. "Now where did I leave that box of cigars…?" he trailed, lumbering out of the office.

As the other Xs filed out of Alec's office, Max approached him.

"I said nothing," he offered, hands up in the air defensively.

She smiled. "Funny to watch him squirm, though, isn't it?" Her eyes were heavy-lidded again.

"Sure is." He smiled back at her.

She wanted to finish what they'd started back at his TC apartment – well, the soon-to-be pile of ash that was his apartment. She didn't want to have all of Terminal City as witness, though, which was inevitably what would happen if she tried to have her wicked way with him, even if she closed his office door.

"Days," he reminded her, knowing exactly what the look on her face meant to suggest.

"Hey, I'm gonna go check on something, but when I get back, let's get my leg and foot runes captured so Dix can start some research and then talk in circles around himself." It was a good-natured jibe. She knew Dix and the other IT models were all working hard.

Alec nodded, folding his lower lip inward to moisten it, trying to taste any remnants of her which might still be lingering on his lips. So what his apartment was burning to a crisp? He had Max.

* * *

Lydecker had agreed to be jailed for the night. He slept in the old jail cell under supervision of one of the night models, Evan, and when Alec came to relieve him in the morning, he'd take over the responsibility of making sure Lydecker wasn't able to do anything to harm TC or its residents. It would be standard protocol, except they weren't an official entity, and Alec didn't believe the old Colonel felt any malice for them. 'Just as a precaution,' Alec had promised, and the Colonel was nothing but accommodating.

As Alec made his way to the jail, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and tried not to think about naked Max under him, her super soft skin rubbing against his, the way her confident stare expressed so much depth. He tried not to think about naked Max, but he couldn't help but imagine all they might have in store for one another. _If we ever got a freakin' minute to ourselves, where we're both lucid and well rested and not in drug-overdosed comas._

He smiled, but it was short lived. The more he thought about Max, the more he realized that having something like that – freedom, love, a life – meant having something to lose. If his plan didn't work, he and Max would be signing themselves up for even more difficult lives.

As he walked into the sheriff's office, he greeted the night model with a stern nod. "Evan."

Evan took his leave, presumably to go spend the next few hours in sweet slumber. Alec turned to the Colonel, who had been awake and reading on of Joshua's books.

Alec sat down just outside the cell. "Sorry about the incarceration."

Lydecker closed the book and set it down on the cot. "I offered. I still have much to make up for."

Alec considered the truth of the statement. Lydecker knew the sins for which he needed to pay. They were many, and they were heavy. The idea of it made him respect the older man, perhaps because he himself knew there would always be certain things for which he'd never gain absolution or garner peace. They were sacrifices and he couldn't take them away. "Just what did you do to them, Max's unit?"

Lydecker hadn't expected the question, and for a moment, remained silent, contemplative. He hadn't raised any of his soldiers to indulge in emotions or possess an understanding of idealistic concepts like courage or justice, but here was living proof that Manticore's progeny were more than just genetically organic soldiers. They were human, too.

Rather than answer Alec's question, he took a breath and stared through the bars past Alec. "Max's birth mother wasn't shot in the operating room after her delivery."

Alec sat forward and shut his mouth tightly. If Lydecker knew something about Max's mother not being shot in the operating room, it meant he knew far more about the surrogates than they thought, and that meant he could be a wealth of information not yet tapped.

"The labor was pretty hard on her, but she was a trooper. Only nineteen and needed the money. Manticore offered that and safety, or so they all thought." Lydecker continued to stare past Alec, unable to face the young X5.

The way he'd said 'they all' made Alec cringe. It was the promise in his gruff voice which meant something monstrous, something evil, had happened to the surrogates. Not only did it send an echo through him about Max's birth mother, but that echo rippled through his mind until he realized it meant he, too, had a birth mother, and she, too, shared in the fate of all the surrogates. And the fact that he recognized the tone in Lydecker's voice nearly revealed a grimace he'd meant just for himself.

"She looks a lot like her, you know," he said, this time looking to Alec. "Slender, exotic, dark… all those things." He paused. "Max has her own way about her, though."

Alec understood the compliment. "So, what, you were just letting her go this whole time? Playing nice?"

His brows moved in a plea for Alec to understand. "It was blocked out, too. Her mother."

"Why?"

Lydecker pursed his lips a moment, trying to decide how much of the truth to tell him. "Shortly after giving birth, all the mothers were taken to a maternity recovery ward, where the scientists and doctors experimented on them."

Alec shook his head. "Of course they did." Unconsciously, he closed his hands into fists. It was blatant abuse and there was nothing he could have done about it.

"Tortured them to see if the children could feel it."

At the former CO's admission, Alec was even more furious. Morbidly, he thought about whether or not the babies felt the experimentation, and whether or not that would have had an effect on their development. He thought about Ben. He thought about himself. Had Ben felt the consequences of the torture? Had Alec?

"One night, I passed her unit's barracks and heard Max crying. 493 had asked her what was the matter. She said she just didn't know. She had a terrible feeling and didn't understand why she was sobbing. 599 asked if she didn't know, how she could be crying for three hours, keeping them all awake, and told her that she'd likely get in trouble if she didn't stop."

Alec's heart constricted. He felt something for the past, child Max. He knew the story would get worse before it was over. It always did.

"So I went to Psy-Ops. She wasn't there. I went to Neuropathy. She wasn't there, either. Finally, I went to the room you kids always called 'The Dungeon.' It's the place they took soldiers to torture and inflict pain. It was a room meant solely for punishment." He looked to Alec as if Alec were his judge. "That's where I found her," he pushed out.

"She was pale and sallow, bruised, covered in lacerations, exhausted physically and mentally. Her head was strapped to the chair, her arms and legs strapped down. Her teeth grinded around the gag in her mouth," he said, grinding his teeth with the memory. "Even though she was restrained, her eyes followed me the moment I walked in." He closed his own eyes momentarily and remembered the haunted look in her eyes.

"At first, I thought she was going to scream that someone was in there with her, but she didn't. She was helpless, frustrated, and just… utterly desolate. She'd been tortured, the likes of which you've probably experienced-"

His reference to Psy-Ops made Alec shut his eyes in flash memories. Worse, he remembered the Dungeon. It was where they sent the soldiers that really fucked up. Or clones of soldiers who really fucked up. "But she was human," he said, unaware the look of concern that his face betrayed.

Lydecker's head fell a moment as if trying to let the visual pour out of him. "She was all out of tears, and tired, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to fix it."

_Here comes the 'worse,'_ Alec thought.

"Renfro said she'd been scheduled for another surrogacy, but I couldn't let that happen. Not after the look she'd given me. Begging, just begging to be released from it all, begging me to have the courage and the mercy."

Alec's eyes rolled upward, as if some higher power could step in and claim responsibility for the evil in the world. He leveled Lydecker with an imbalanced stare, his jaw set and eyes cold as stone. It was a question.

And as Lydecker looked down toward the cement floor, Alec thought of the day he'd been arrested by Seattle PD and then rescued by Max. She'd bared her soul to him that night – one facet of complete truth that had utterly shattered her. And all he'd wanted to do was help her keep it all together.

"And when I passed by their barracks later, Max was screaming and thrashing in bed. Two of the guards sedated her and dragged her out of the room as her unit mates looked on." He looked down at his hands.

Alec recognized the faraway look in his eyes. He'd had to do what he did. There was no other choice. In the retelling of the story, Lydecker had inadvertently drawn a parallel between himself and Max; he just didn't see it himself.

_But if Max's mother wasn't the woman in Max's regression, then who was?_

"Why didn't you tell her it wasn't her mother?"

Lydecker fixed him with a disciplined stare. Until that moment, Alec hadn't been aware that Lydecker also had a Manticore mask behind which to file those emotionalities. "Would you have?" the older man asked.

"Yeah, Max isn't exactly the poster child for 'ask questions first,'" he ceded.

* * *

"Joshua?" Max called, walking through the door to her canine-enhanced friend's apartment.

From somewhere in his bedroom, Joshua yelled, "Max, close door! Hurry!"

She closed the door behind her and hesitantly made her way toward his room, careful not to touch any of the canvases lining the walls.

"I wanted to ask you something," she cautiously called out. "And why did I need to shut the door so quick?"

As she rounded the corner, Max discovered Joshua lying on his side on his bed, watching as a tiny fuzz ball of orange and white stripes jumped the various dunes of his bedspread. Immediately, she smiled, seeing its little pink nose twitch up toward her, smelling at the air. "Who's this?" she asked, getting closer.

Joshua smiled. "Lucy. Joshua's friend."

Max reached out a hand and let Lucy sniff at it. She rubbed her cheek into Max's finger. "Hi, Lucy." Max turned back toward Joshua. Was it natural for a canine-human hybrid to have a pet feline?

"Lucy alone."

Max's expression softened. "She's adorable," she gushed, watching as Lucy jumped a big bedspread dune and fell softly on her tummy. She rolled onto her back and let Joshua scratch her belly. He smiled, joyful at Lucy's activity.

Joshua's happiness was infectious as he played with the kitten. "Max, have a question?" he asked, scratching softly at Lucy's ears. The little kitten adjusted her head so Joshua's scratches were exactly where she wanted them.

"Oh, right," Max began. "I was wondering if you could help me with something. It's about Sandeman."

Joshua smiled as Lucy pounced on his hand.

* * *

Alec shifted in his seat, not wanting to answer the Colonel's question. "That's really none of your goddamn business."

"I'll take that as a yes, then," Lydecker confirmed, sitting back against the wall, smirking as if he'd just figured out a dirty little secret.

Pursing his lips momentarily, Alec considered his next tactic.

"I think you both ought to go under once more and see if you can remember anything else about your respective meetings with Sandeman. Something he told you do to. Something specific."

Alec raked his hands over his scalp and let out a sigh. This was getting to be more complicated than he had thought.

* * *

"You sure you're ready for this?" Max asked Alec as she unbuttoned her jeans. Alec's eyes followed the movement of her fingers as she slid the zipper down.

They were in her office with the door closed and with explicit instructions not to be interrupted for any reason.

Alec nodded, unsure of what to do with his hands. "Need some help?"

Max looked up. "No, I think I mastered taking my own pants off." She smiled and inched the denim over her hips.

"Are you trying to torture me?" he asked, his eyes darting back and forth between her eyes and her exposed skin.

Max moved even slower and swayed her hips as she pushed the denim down her thighs. She kicked at the legs until she was free of the material and tossed her pants to the couch next to where Alec was planted.

Alec gulped and, despite how desperately he wanted to reach out and touch her, picked up his phone and prepared to snap pictures of her leg runes.

* * *

Dix sat at the network, his eyes darting over several screens as he searched for Fink's movement in Europe and how it related to the Familiars. He was fairly successful at ignoring Max and Alec's conversation in the room adjoined to the network communications platform.

His thought patterns were interrupted when an incoming call popped up on one of his screens. It was Logan. Dix looked around to see if there was anyone else who the journalist preferred to talk to, but most of them were buttoning up the fire and he was alone at network. He clicked to answer.

"Hey, Logan."

Logan's head was down, possibly in thought, and he raised his face to the screen. "Hey –" he searched his memory for the right name. "Dix, right?"

Dix nodded. "What can I do for you?"

Logan tapped a couple of keys while he considered the question. "I have some – you know what?" he interrupted himself. "Is Max around?"

Dix looked over his shoulder toward the direction of Max's office. She and Alec had said no interruptions. He allowed their conversation back into his earshot.

"_Why? Too difficult to be alone in the room with me with no panties on?" Max asked._

_Alec groaned. "You are evil. Pure evil."_

"_Just take the pictures."_

"_I am!" he protested. _

"_Hey, you don't need – oh… mmm, okay."_

Dix cleared his throat. "She can't come to the phone right now."

Logan tilted his head. "Are you sure? It's really important."

Dix heard Max laugh, and then heard the unmistakable sounds of lips on lips. "Yeah, I'm sure. She's right in the middle of something. Need me to take a message?"

Logan returned his head to level stasis. "Yeah, can you tell her I have some important info if she can make some time to stop by?"

"No problem," Dix offered.

"Thanks."

Dix's screen revealed that the host had disconnected. He tuned Max and Alec back out and continued working.

* * *

"Max, can I ask you something?" Alec began as Max slid her legs back into her pants. She stood and yanked the denim up over her hips, fastening the button and zipper quickly.

Max smiled. "When we have somewhere private," she answered, despite the fact that he hadn't asked his actual question.

Alec blushed. "Not that," he started, and then distractedly watched her backside as she bent over to put her socks and shoes back on. "Although, really? Does it really have to be private? I'd be more than happy to satiate you right here in this office, on this couch. And if you can't keep quiet, that's not my fault. I wouldn't be embarrassed by your screaming. In fact," he paused, reaching forward to grab her by the waist and pull her onto his lap, and then continued, "I'd be proud."

Max laughed and turned sideways in his lap so she could face him. She jutted her chin toward him and kissed him softly twice. On the third kiss, their mouths opened a scant inch and created that beautiful vacuum which begged their tongues' involvement.

With a hand on his chest, Max pulled back before their sweet kisses turned into kisses with heavy promise, and said, "Days. Remember?"

He rolled his eyes. It definitely wasn't fair.

"Besides, we have a city to help run."

"Can I help it I want you all to myself?" he said in a sexy, low tone.

Max smiled, stood up, and walked toward her desk. "You will," she said.

Alec threw his head to the couch back and took a deep breath, suddenly remembering his question. "So my question… You said that your memories came to you in numbered compartments."

Max sat at her desk and shifted through a couple of stacks of papers. Intake forms, 20-year-old building reports, requests for medical supplies. "Yeah, I get the feeling Lydecker thought that was pretty fucked up," she said. "Though I don't know why. Seems like he'd be proud that his soldiers actually successfully compartmentalized."

It was at that moment that Alec truly felt the degree to which Max was convinced she was broken by Manticore and Lydecker. But it was the only thing her former CO had allowed her to see. He knew now that there were multiple sides to the rigid colonel, and almost no one held the privilege of knowing it. He wore that heavy albatross invisibly. "What were the numbers?" he asked.

Max started at the first memory. "4526 was first."

"That was your escape from Manticore?"

"No, that was 4524. I didn't tell Lydecker about some of my memories. I didn't think they were pertinent."

Alec nodded, taking this in. "Which one was it? The bunker or the courtyard?"

It was a logical leap she didn't think he'd make, but he'd surprised her after all. "The bunker."

Alec's mind played with the bunker and 4526, trying to discover if they had anything in common. Of course the first thing he thought was that both numbers so far began with '452', Max's designation. _We were in the bunker for… seven days, not six, _he thought.

Max could see Alec was quickly running number-scenarios in his head, and by the way his eyes shifted with each new thought, he was quickly ruling out possibilities.

"What was the next one? When you were blushing? You said that it was your cell at Manticore after your recapture." His brows rose and he gave a surprised, "Ah, was it me? Talking about becoming breeding partners?"

Max looked straight into him, shocked. _Dammit!_

He smiled sweetly instead of cockily. "Really?"

Max looked back down, a tiny smile tugging up the sides of her mouth. "Really."

He straightened his back and cleared his throat. "What number was that?"

"4527," Max answered. She hadn't thought too much about the numbers before, but now that Alec was asking, she was beginning to form some theories about them. Obviously '452' was her designation, but what did the fourth digit of the compartment name mean?

Alec was trying to think creatively about it. 4527 was not her cell number. And time-wise, 4526's compartment in the bunker came after 4527's compartment throwing Max a memory of the day they'd become breeding partners. "Okay, and then came the 'nightmare,'" Alec said, using her word. "What was that, by the way?"

Max really didn't want to go through that memory again, but she was trying just as hard as he was to work out the room to memory connection versus reality and the prophesy. "Ended in '5'," she stared. "I was a teenager."

It was all he could get her to say. She was so tight-lipped about this nightmare and was not interested in explaining it. Much like Alec, Max did not want to be pitied. And much like Max, Alec knew something was awry in that memory, and if he had the chance, he would make whoever put that frown on her face pay for sullying the most beautiful, stubborn woman he'd met. Nonetheless, she had been a teenager during 4525, and she was older in the bunker at compartment 4526 than she was as a teenager.

As quickly as she could before Alec's next question, Max tried to catalogue the memories that followed. The next was 4523 and it was connected to the courtyard memories. She was a child then, which made sense, since 4525 showed her as a teen, and 4523 was counting down to child. And 4524 was the escape in '09, which fit right in with the countdown.

"And then the courtyard," Alec filled in. How he could have known which one was next kind of surprised her. Maybe it made the most sense, since she'd explained the last few compartments as the Operating Room, the protocol being administered, and finally the blood and fire memory.

"The courtyard was 4523," she said.

"And the OR?" he asked, sitting forward.

Max furrowed her brow. It didn't make sense that the operating room would be 4528 if this was a countdown to her mother having given birth. But after that memory, she had Lydecker administering the protocol to Sandeman, and then the doomsday apocalypse, and those numbers didn't make sense either, because time-wise, it put the OR at the end of the chronology.

"The OR was 4520," she lied. She wanted it to make sense, and putting it before Forget-Me-Not and the Doomsday Prophesy made the most sense. She argued with herself that it _had_ to be her mother. That's what it had felt like, and it was 'dream knowledge,' as Original Cindy called it. There were things one just _knew_ in one's dreams, without anyone in the dream expressly stating so.

Alec's brows quirked at the number. Clearly, he had been moving to an alternate conclusion before she gave him the number, and how he had to recalculate based on new information. _Okay, if that's the case, then what woman did Max see in her regression? It wasn't her mother, but it has to be someone and something she saw herself, creating the memory, but a memory which was later taken from her for some reason._ He nodded and filed that information to the side. "And then the Protocol?"

Max felt relieved that he accepted her lie and was eager to move past it. "That one was compartment 4522, and then the blood and fire one was 4521."

"Hmm," Alec hummed, crossing his arms in front of him. He sorted out the images and rearranged them chronologically. "Do you think it's a countdown or a count up?"

Max thought about it. They were all memories tightening and leading toward Sandeman. "Countdown, I think. To Sandeman." She started going through them again in reverse. "So first was the operating room, then the blood and fire thing, then Forget-Me-Not-"

Alec interrupted, rising to his feet. "Then the courtyard, then your escape, then whatever happened with your foster family – remind me to kill that asshole, by the way –"

Max didn't know how he could have picked up on what her foster dad had almost done to her (and definitely had done to her foster sisters, but her mouth fell open slightly in embarrassed surprise anyway.

"You called it a nightmare," he offered as his proof, stilling to stare into her for confirmation.

Her refusal to respond to his 'proof' validated it for him. Instead of denying the proof, Max stood to pace to the front of her desk. "And then the bunker, and then the breeding partners."

Alec pressed his lips together. Something about all this was not adding up as he expected. "Those seem reversed to you?" he asked about her last two compartments.

Max studied his face a moment before minutely shrugging her shoulders. "Maybe it's not a countdown," she offered. "Maybe there's no significance to the numbers."

_Not likely_, thought Alec. Another idea occurred to him and he lifted his eyebrows suggestively, checking her out from the curve of her hip to the soft blush on her face. "Maybe that last one is a future thing," he said, smirking.

It brought a smile to her face. She took two steps toward him, crowding his personal space, and stared up at him. "Maybe." She rose to her tiptoes to capture his lips again.

Alec pressed into her, slipping his tongue past her lips to mingle with hers. He swept his arms around her, and she brought both hands up his chest to caress him and pull him deeper into her. Mid-kiss, she let out a needful whine which awakened a lustful fire deep in his loins.

His eyes snapped open with a realization. '0' was like an Ace in a deck of cards: it could be the lowest number or the highest. If he tacked the '0' on to the end of her visions instead of the beginning, then it could be a woman Max had yet to meet, a memory she had yet to make. She was convinced it was her birth mother, but like Lydecker suggested, she couldn't have seen that far back. Or was some part of her regression actually a dream?

Alec broke off their kiss, despite how wrong it felt to keep her warm and willing lips from doing whatever they wanted. He looked down into her eyes, filled entirely with a barely-bridled passion. Again, he smiled at her. "Days," he said.

Max tongued and bit her lower lip. "You sure you have the stamina?" she teased. It'd been a while, but she decided flirting was like riding a bike. Which, ironically, prior to Manticore's demise, she'd done nearly every day.

He sighed. "Of course. I'm an endurance model." He wagged his brows and released her. Grabbing his phone which stored the pictures he'd just taken of her new runes, he turned toward the door, took a few strides, and then turned back to look at her again. "You coming?"

Max's eyes lit up as her thirsty body attempted to drink him in. "Not yet."

His head fell back in mock agony.

Meeting him at the doorway, Max pulled him out into the hall and through the double doors to the network communications area.

In those few steps between the double doors and net communications, Alec had an epiphany. _Maybe the woman in Max's memory _is_ someone from a future memory. Maybe it's Max herself._


	20. Day Six Above (Pt 2): Auguries

Previously: In those few steps between the double doors and net communications, Alec had an epiphany. _Maybe the woman in Max's memory _is_ someone from a future memory. Maybe it's Max herself._

* * *

_Oh, fuck._

Alec kept his face neutral and calmly climbed the stairs up to the Network Communications platform right behind Max, but his mind was nothing close to neutral.

The idea that the woman killed in Max's regression was pregnant and was possibly Max was sending him right into an anxiety attack. It meant that she somehow had the ability to see into the future. It meant that she would get shot and probably die. Holy hell, it meant she would be pregnant when it happened.

_Pregnant._

_Oh, fuck, _he repeated mentally. _If this morning is any indication of where we're going, then I'm the reason future Max is pregnant. Oh, fuck._

Alec handed his phone to Dix, who immediately plugged it into his computer and began copying the images into his 'Max's Runes' file.

As Alec hung back, leaning against the railing and getting even more lost in his thoughts, Dix and Max began talking.

_Simple solution: no sex with Max. No sex with Max means no pregnancy means Max will not get shot means Max will not die._

_Totally unfair,_ he decided nearly within the same second. _New plan: protection. Safe sex with Max. _Looking up for a moment, Alec found Dix and Max staring at him expectantly. "Sorry, what?"

"We were talking about Max going under again," Dix said, scratching his head.

Surprised, Alec took a breath. If she wanted to do this, then he wouldn't have to convince her. "Are you sure?" He idly wondered why she would invite it after such a horrible experience the first time.

Max crossed her arms, feeling as though her thoughts were naked before him. "I may not like it but it's what best to try to figure all this out. Dix thinks he's close with the runes, and he's got a more solid trail on that scientist that had you." Her expression faltered for a moment and Alec realized she harbored some pretty terrible emotions surrounding Fink. "But I'm nowhere close to understanding this. Maybe Logan has more information, too."

"Logan?"

Dix spoke up. "He called while you were capturing runes." The way Dix's eyes avoided them indicated he'd heard at least some of their conversation. "Asked if she'd stop by."

"Yeah, but I don't think I can get into it with him right now." Max's eyes pleaded with Alec to understand. "I'll just give him a call from here and see what he's got."

Alec nodded. "You don't have to if you don't want to. You don't owe him anything."

"I know." Max went through her mental catalog of all Logan had been through for just knowing her. Thing was, she felt she did owe him.

"When do you want to go back under? I gotta go visit Med Bay and see how much of that stuff we have left."

"I'll call Logan now, so maybe after that?"

He pursed his lips, a kind of dissatisfaction filling his expression. "Okay. Be right back." Without waiting for a response, Alec took off toward Med Bay.

* * *

With Dix seated next to her but not visible on the webcam, Max sat uncomfortably in her chair and dialed Logan. It took him a bit of time to answer, and when he did, he looked disappointed. "Hey Max," he greeted.

"Hey," she responded awkwardly, looking down at the keyboard. From their last conversation, she wasn't really sure where they stood. "Sorry I didn't call sooner. Things have been kinda crazy."

Logan nodded. "Listen, I was kinda hoping you could stop by. I have some information for you."

Max pursed her lips. "I was hoping we could talk about it over the webcam."

Logan looked away as if it bothered him to have to tell her anything over a webcam. Is that what he'd been downgraded to? "It's important and I don't want anyone listening in. Not really secure right now. I'd go there, but the servo's been acting up, which means I'd have to use the chair and that's a hassle; besides, it just started raining."

He had really laid it on thick, and it was working. He could see how her eyes flitted downward with the weight and guilt of everything he'd done for her, no matter what it had cost him.

Sighing deeply, Max nodded. "Okay. I'll be by in a few hours. I got a couple of things to take care of."

Logan almost smiled victoriously. "Okay, see you then."

As Max disconnected the call, she stared down at the keyboard.

"Jesus, what a downer," Dix said. "And that business about an insecure line? That's bat shit."

Despite his erroneous but quasi-funny usage of 'bat shit' instead of 'bullshit,' Max remained quiet. She knew what Logan wanted to talk about, and it wasn't just whatever information he'd gathered on her runes or Fink or White or the Familiars.

Max thought about how she was going to handle this conversation with Logan. Already she was dreading the whole thing. She'd go over there and he'd lay an extra guilt trip on her that he'd found the cure, and now expected them to suddenly move into the 'like that' category.

But she needed to be honest with him. More than that, she needed to be honest with herself. She'd been running from who she was for a long time, and not being able to be with Logan had supported Renfro's idea that she was poison. And of course she made it so that Max became actual, real poison to him. Really she'd been poison for everyone she considered a friend.

But their months upon months of not touching, leading indiscriminately into not even seeing one another, and months upon months of Logan's inability to stay away from her, even though his survival depended strictly on his staying away from her, had eventually led to anxiety and strain on the occasion when he guilted her into an Eyes Only mission. It bred a certain distaste and she began to see his actions as bordering out-of-line. She didn't want to call him obsessive – because what if he was just holding so tightly onto something of which she'd already faced the cold hard reality, and something of which she had already let go?

"Earth to Max," came Alec's voice.

Snapped out of her trance, Max looked over to where Alec stood with Lydecker. "Ready?"

Max stood and thanked Dix on her way out of Network Communications.

* * *

_Young 494 sat in the leather armchair, eyes forward as the older man with the decorative cane paced the room. It was Sandeman's office, he could tell by the style. This time around, the office was in disarray – books and papers in stacks on various surfaces throughout the room, drawings and calculations left out on the desk and table. Alec had the feeling it was one of many sessions he'd had with the scientist._

"_Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles to-day tomorrow will be dying,"_1_ he said._

_494 searched his memory, facial features rigid. "Herrick's 'To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time,'" he answered._

"_Correct," Sandeman said, nodding and pacing toward one of the walls full of books. He cleared his throat. "Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. But if I had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction, ice is also great and would suffice."_2

"_Frost. Fire and Ice." 494's small voice filled with confidence at knowing the answer._

"_Very good," the older man said. He hummed, thinking of a challenge for the young soldier. He sat across from the boy on the table's edge, barely missing the edge of a stack of books, and stared into his eyes. The young boy kept his stare forward, as he'd been taught his whole life._

"_There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; and though the last lights of the black West went, Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs – because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and with ah!" he paused, raising his brows with a contentedness the likes of which 494 had never seen, before finishing, "bright wings."_3

_Again, 494 searched his memory as Sandeman waited in silence. Finally, the answer came to him. "Hopkins. God's Grandeur."_

_Sandeman smiled proudly. "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"_4

_494's brows quirked as he waited for the poet's name to come to him. He held in the time-consuming 'um,' preferring the silence to help him remember. "Browning. Andrea del Sarto."_

_Impressed with his recall, Sandeman nodded his approval. He stood again and paced around the armchair. He smirked, thinking the next quote might give the young X5 some pause. "One had a cat's face, on whisked a tail, one tramped at a rat's pace, one crawled like a snail, one like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry, one like a ratel tumbled hurry scurry."_5

_The images played the young boy's mind and he almost smiled at the scene. "Rossetti," he started. "Goblin Market."_

"_Which Rossetti?"_

"_Christina."_

_Sandeman again smiled. The X5 had been doing the studying he'd asked, and was even better at retention than some of the live experiments. He settled on one final quote. "The darkness drops again but now I know that twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, and what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"_6

"_The Second Coming. Yeats," 494 answered._

"_Very good, 494," Sandeman praised. "I have only one further question for you."_

"_Sir?"_

_Sandeman stood in front of the door and met 494's gaze. "Where is she now?"_

_494 closed his eyes and reached out mentally for the answer. He smiled, then remembered his training and schooled his features. "In the mess hall, making a mess of herself, sir," he answered. _

_A small girl with a buzzed head had accidentally dropped her plate from a case of the shakes, and to cover it up, her unit had started Manticore's first and only food fight. Where they even got the idea would baffle Manticore's leaders for the rest of their time, and 494 knew they'd get in trouble. All of them knew they'd get in trouble. But they shoved turkey and milk into the young girl's mouth, even giving up their own meals to help stifle and disguise her tremors._

_494 opened his eyes to a proud Sandeman. "Very good, young man." He was starting to sound like a broken record. "It may not seem like it now, but this… connection will help you both in the coming years."_

_494 nodded without speaking, squaring his shoulders and sitting up straighter._

* * *

_This was different. It wasn't a hallway this time. No compartments, no circles. No, this time, she was in Logan's penthouse, the lights dimmed and the place seemingly empty. As she made her way through, keeping her hands to herself, she saw his living room shades had been drawn and the couple in one of the lower floors in the building across room Logan's, well… there was no delicate way to express it – they were screwing like jackrabbits._

_Her ocular enhancement allowed her to see the look on the woman's face as the man pounded into her on their sofa. It was pure ecstasy – sweaty, teeth-grinding, nail-clawing, heart-pounding, toe-curling ecstasy. A sheen of sweat pressed her hair to her forehead as she held the man against her by his ass._

_She blushed and gave a soft smile to her own reflection in the window pane, then a frown, realizing she would never have something so… primal… with Logan, even if they did find the cure._

_Logan's reflection appeared the in the glass. He was quietly watching her. "Hey," he greeted, as if he thought he'd successfully snuck up on her._

"_Did you know your neighbors across the way are screwing each other's brains out?" She turned to face him, adjusting her vision back to its standard one to one ratio. The corners of her mouth tugged up._

_Logan frowned like a disapproving parent. "Max, you're supposed to use your powers for good," he chided. "You're invading their privacy."_

_Max shrugged. "Not like they don't know where the windows are. If they didn't want people looking, they should have closed their shades. And honestly, wasn't like I was sitting down for the show – it just caught my peripheral."_

_Logan's exo whirred as he crossed the room to close his shades. "Still, it's the principle of the matter."_

_But Max had already felt her blood rising. "And it's not a 'power,' Logan, it's a part of who I am."_

"_You don't have to use it for this, though," he argued._

"_That's like telling you not to use your hands to type! Don't be an arrogant jackass just because you don't have that ability!"_

"_Even if I did, I wouldn't use it like you do."_

"_Bullshit. You hack into hover drones and have them fly where you can use them as your seeing-eye cameras all the time!"_

_Feeling her angry stare slicing him, Logan said, "It's wrong, Max. And I don't want to keep arguing about it – I have something to show you." He led her back to his office and sat at his computer._

_Max curbed her anger for what she hoped was just long enough to discern whether or not his information was useful, and only long enough for that._

_She watched as Logan's fingers moved over strange combinations of keys – combinations that formed very specific algorithms, combinations which Max had been taught when she was six years old. Closing her eyes, she let her fingers' muscle memory take over as she shadow-typed on her thighs the exact same sequence Logan was using to hack the site he was on._

_Oh my god, she thought, opening her eyes. She realized, knowing she had never shown him this before, that he must have known someone else from Manticore before he made her acquaintance._

"_Where did you learn that?" she asked warily._

_Logan's typing faltered a moment and he refused to look at her. "Just picked it up somewhere. I don't remember where," he bold face lied._

_Hypocrite!_

* * *

_He wasn't sure where he was. Dark space, somewhere. No matter which direction he willed his eyes to go, no matter how deep he attempted to enhance his vision, he couldn't see anything. He had a calm feeling, though. A stillness of being._

_Off in what he assumed was the infinite distance, he heard Lydecker's voice. "Try to control what you are seeing. Try to create a memory or a scene. See if you can." They had talked about the idea earlier that morning. Maybe Max had conjured up the last two 'memories' on her own, as a kind of nightmare, or maybe a false memory. Alec's suggestion was to figure out of it was possible to create while under the regression therapy._

_He wasn't sure if he was in Psy-Ops or if he was just in darkness, but slowly, light leaked into the room. He squinted against the few beams and tried to find his bearings. A couple of pillars extended roughly fifty feet up to where, through broken tiles and an old cave-in, Alec saw a full, bright moon in a dark blue sky, thousands of stars scattered like pinholes. The moon cast in shafts of lunar light, and as his eyes grew accustomed to it he discovered he was lying on a dirt floor._

_Sitting up, he cased the room for exits, but despite the pillars, the room seemed devoid of much else. Around and behind the cream-colored columns slunk shadows slipping into more darkness. He climbed to his feet, noticing how the scattered sand leant to the coolness of the room, and ventured around the first visible column. He held his breath, waiting to see if anyone else would show themselves. Except no one else seemed to be there. _

_Placing his arms around the column as if giving the giant column a hug, he attempted to climb the pillar, but it was no use. Despite the sand in the room, the pillars felt too cold and smooth, almost wet, and it left him feeling as though there was no traction._

_He heard a noise to the left. Or at least he thought it was the left. Twisting toward the noise, he remained standing, quiet as he could be. "Who's there?" he asked into the space. Though alerted, he didn't feel as though he was in any danger, nor did he feel he needed to shout to be heard._

"_I already tried that," came a voice out of the shadows. It was Max, and like a dream, her voice carried as if on wind._

_Alec spun around, confused. This was not a memory, but it still felt very real. _

"_Is this place just like you dreamed?" Max asked, her sultry voice echoing upward toward the stars._

_Have I dreamt this place before? he wondered. He looked around again to see if anything sparked a memory. "I'm not sure," he said._

_Max finally swayed into the room, drifting on the sand. Like a goddess wrapped in deep, rich burgundy and crimson robes lined with a pristine white sheer and tied with gold ribbon details, Max stepped through the shadows as if through a portal from a darker world, her omniscient stare burrowing deep into Alec. She was a vision of elegance. Her robe accentuated her skin, and only parts of it were visible – her hands, her feet, her face and a pretty decent amount of her neck and upper chest._

_He swallowed hard, his breath taken away by the beauty before him, but it wasn't her hands, her feet, or her face which took his breath away; it was the confident, loving, lustful stare in her eyes. "Max, I-"_

_Max had crossed the distance to him before he could convey his thoughts. She placed her hands on his chest, feeling his heartbeat pound against her palm. "After all this time, even now, I still make your heart race," she had said, interrupting. Rising to her tip toes, she brushed her lips against his._

_Lowering back down, Max pushed her hands up his chest, circled them around to his neck, and swept one up into his hair, pressing her fingertips into his scalp._

_He closed his eyes in relaxation as her fingertips massaged him. By suggestion from her movement, Alec bent his head down to hers, resting his forehead against hers._

_Max caressed his neck and pulled her soft skin toward his face. Gently brushing her thumb across his cheekbone, she pulled him toward her for another kiss, a kiss he wouldn't dream of interrupting._

_Before he knew it, Max was pushing him backward while their kiss intensified, until his calves hit a hard surface and he bent at the knees to sit on the slab to which Max had apparently led him._

_Max gathered the sides of her robe and hiked them up, planting one knee on one side of him and the other knee on the other side. His hands slid up her thighs, the sensation of her warm core against him causing his temperature to rise. _

_Her hands pushed down between their bodies, fiddling with his belt buckle and the button and zipper on his jeans until she reached between boxers and skin, found his hardness, and stroked him teasingly._

_Alec let out a growl, her deft grope making him wonder if he was groaning on the table back in reality. In the dream, he shifted his hands higher up her thighs and felt no restriction or interruption. His eyes snapped open to Max, whom, with a hungry stare, smiled wickedly and pushed at his boxers and the sides of his pants. He lifted his hips to help push down his pants, and then sat back on the slab. Within a few seconds, Max raised above him and sank down onto him._

_With increased breathing, they both began a steady, slow rhythm, Max grinding into his lap and clutching his shoulders for stability. As she guided this lovemaking, Alec tried to sit up, kissing at whatever skin he could access. He pulled back a moment, rapt by Max's ministrations, reached up to the golden cord which tied her robe, and pulled it loose._

_The left side of the robe sagged to the left, giving him vision to her naked breast. He moved the right side of the robe, barely able to keep his wits about him when she whined as he pushed into her. Then he saw something which shocked him._

_Max was about five months pregnant, judging by the way her belly extended out. And he knew it was his baby in there. Roaring and growling with pride and pleasure, Alec intensified his movements, holding her hips down on him as she rocked back and forth, her cheeks rosy with passion and breath coming out ragged, determined to give her his everything._

* * *

_She was so young, and as Max watched her own buzzed head peek around the corner of an office door, Max was filled with an odd sense of pride over her younger self. Even at that age, she didn't want to get caught._

"_Come in," said a familiar voice. It was softer, smoother than it would eventually become just years later._

_Child Max came out from behind the door frame and took tiny steps into the small office. Before Child Max stood a much younger Lydecker, the few lines on his face less harsh than they'd be in later years. The youngster tugged on Lydecker's arm, and when he looked down to her and away from what he was doing, he looked concerned. "What's wrong, Tutu?" he asked gently._

_Tutu? What the hell? Max wondered. _

_Child Max pulled on his arm again and looked at Lydecker with huge doe eyes._

_He set down the materials he'd been holding and turned in his seat to face young Max. "Oh, it's okay," he started, sounding very much like a parent. He scooped her up and sat her on his lap. "There's nothing to be afraid of. I promise."_

_Adult Max felt her heartbeat quicken. Was this a real memory?_

_To say that she was shocked or surprised would be gross understatements. Here she was, sitting on Lydecker's lap, and the man was reassuring her of something about which she'd apparently been afraid._

_Child Max looked to the items on the table in front of Lydecker, and noted the now-familiar clear bag of blue-green liquid, the IV. Her eyes were wide with wonder. She looked up to him._

"_Don't worry, Tutu. I'll protect you," he said. _

_Child Max fell against him and he hugged her loosely._

_What. The fuck. Adult Max was beside herself, her status quo thrown right out the window. She wondered if Lydecker remembered this at all. 'Tutu' sure sounded like a cutesy little nickname, but coming from him…?_

* * *

_He arrived at the elder man's study to find Sandeman pacing his office quickly, sans cane, rambling to himself, some of his dark hair falling forward in his haste. He pushed it back, still not noting the young X5's presence._

"_But she is the Bearer… I can't let them take her… Ethically it's wrong. What was I thinking bringing them into this? I knew it might call attention to what's going on. Supposed to be secret…" he mumbled, quick strides leading to his desk._

_He pulled his trash can out and dumped a few papers into it, papers with equations and theories decorating the edges. He walked to the wall of books and removed one which looked so old it could fall apart, its spine held together by just a few strings, its name no longer recognizable if it was even there to begin with._

"_Gotta get rid of the evidence," he continued, a dangerous shift in his eyes seeking purchase into actions. He opened the book to roughly its middle, grabbed the two halves by their edges, and began to tear. The threads at its spine snapped one by one, and as the book came apart in his hands, he looked up to see 494 standing in his doorway, waiting to be acknowledged and given permission before speaking or entering._

_Sandeman's brows raised and he set the book halves on the table on his way to the door. "Come in! Come in," he said, pulling the boy by his shoulders into the room._

_494 let his feet carry him into the room, and as Sandeman shut the door behind him, 494 looked to the book halves on the table. Strange characters or markings lined the pages vertically, and as he stood there, he memorized the shapes and order of them, his young brain attempting to make sense of it, attempting to crack the code._

"_Okay, good. Deck gave you the message," Sandeman began. He walked toward the young blonde. "Take a seat, young man."_

_He studied the last of the characters on the page and allowed his attention to be broken to look up at the scientist._

_Sandeman motioned to the chair, and while 494 sat down, he picked up the torn book, tossed it into the can, and sat on the edge of the table. "Okay, soldier, listen to me very carefully. You remember what I said in our first meeting?"_

_494 sat up straight. "Yes, sir. I haven't told anyone anything, sir."_

_Though he nodded, Sandeman did not look pleased, and 494 began to wonder if he'd done something wrong. He attempted to keep his features emotionless._

"_Well, we have to forget everything," he said. 494's eyes widened, fearing he was being punished, or that he might have to visit Psy-Ops._

_Sandeman stood up. "Everything – all your extracurricular studies, our meetings and sessions, everything we talked about. Even me," he said, his own eyes wide with a wild panic and surprised realization the likes of which the young soldier had not yet seen. "And especially her."_

_Unbidden, an image came to 494's mind. In it, the girl with the buzzed head and full lips, the girl he was supposed to protect, sat still across from Lydecker, biting her lip as the older man inserted an IV into her arm. She was partially reclined in a chair in a dark room he'd never seen before, and worse: her eyes were wide with fear, with tears, with pain._

"_You have to forget how to do that," Sandeman said, recognizing the look he'd seen the young X5 make each time he successfully saw the mark of his protection._

"_I don't think I can, sir," 494 said worriedly. "Did I do something wrong, sir?"_

_Sandeman frowned at the simplicity of the boy's question and moved to sit across from him again. "No. I think I may have."_

_Unsure of how to process the elder man's confession, 494's brows rose in question._

_Sandeman stood again, seeming not to be able to figure out whether he needed to sit and explain it to 494, or to stand to collect and destroy his work up to this point. Sandeman approached a table with various stacks of papers on it. He gathered the papers in one big messy pile, held them loosely in his arms, and hurriedly carried them to the trash. He tried to get all the papers in with one release, but a few fell out._

_Against his training, 494 unseated himself and squatted to help the man get the papers into the trash. Some of them looked like complex math or chemical diagrams. One stood out to him but he wasn't sure why._

"_What you saw Deck doing," Sandeman said, pushing the crumpled papers down, "you and I both need to do that, too. To forget."_

_494 silently questioned if such a thing was possible. He'd been honing his skills and, barring a serious trip to Psy-Ops, thought that once he'd learned how to do something, he'd never forget. "Sir, what if I can't forget?"_

"_You will, my boy," he comforted, putting a reassuring hand on 494's shoulder. They locked eyes for a moment. "Now help me get rid of this stuff. No one can know about the Bearer."_

_494 picked up a loose paper and saw what looked like a partial translation written on it. He noted the words 'bearer,' 'create,' 'one,' 'protector,' which had a question mark after it, and the phrase 'She is the one.'_

* * *

_Child Max was in the old Victorian study, having been called to the environment a few minutes prior. When the superior officer let her into the room, he told her take a seat, an instruction which she dutifully followed._

_But as soon as he shut the door and she realized she was alone, little 452 got up out of her seat and began peeking about the study. It was well-organized, with shelves full of books in order by subject._

_Adult Max thought this guy had information vegetable, animal and mineral, and with a thought to the song, watched as Child max lifted a book from the shelf and flipped through the pages._

_Her eyes widened at the picture in front of her – it was something she'd never seen before: a double helix. She studied it with a new fascination, tracing her fingertips over the spirals._

_Replacing the book, she continued milling about the room. At the desk, she saw four separate pictures shoved into one frame. Four boys, two older and two younger, smiled at the photographers. The two older boys had hair like some of the drill sergeants, but the younger ones had hair like hers – buzzed, kept short._

_Hearing someone's footsteps approaching the office, Child Max quickly sat back down in the chair and waited. The door handle twisted, and that's when the man walked in._

_From where Adult Max was positioned, she couldn't see his face. 'Damn, that drug must have done a number on me,' she thought. 'I can never fricken' see the guy's face!'_

_Child Max stared up at him in partial wonderment. The man walked with cane, and from behind him, Max thought he seemed young. Something about him was off, though, and she couldn't quite place it._

_The man sat across from the young X5, and for more than a minute, they stared at one another silently, until a tiny smile spread on the girl's small face._

"_Yes, I thought it was you," the elder man said._

_Adult Max was confused. Until then, neither had said a word, but his sentence sounded like the answer to a question. An unspoken question?_

_Young 452 remained quiet, her face in rapt amazement. She reached out and tugged on the man's left ear._

_The man laughed. "That's right," he said. His voice, so assured, so protective and so proud, filled the young child with comfort; Max could tell by the way the soldier's body language relaxed that she was somewhat uninhibited._

_With her left hand, Child Max reached out to the man's face and touched his cheek._

"_Very good," he said as the girl lowered her hand. She smiled wide, and Max found herself awestruck by the simple beauty of her younger self's unencumbered smile._

_The man placed his hand on 452's and she stilled, smiling at him. "Do you know why I've called you?"_

_Child Max shook her head._

"_It's because I have a very special job for you to do. Do you think you'd like to help me with it?"_

_Child Max studied the man's hand, a hand on which was fitted an onyx ring with a gold Manticore insignia emblazoned on it. _

"_Well, thank you, my little special one," he said. _

_Again, Max was confused. The tiny soldier hadn't said anything, and yet the dark-haired man had spoken as if in answer to her._

_With wide, soft brown eyes, young 452 looked up to the man, imploringly._

_The man turned her hand over in his, and from behind him, Adult Max could see the edge of something – a tattoo? – sticking out from the cuff of his sleeve. It looked like the Manticore symbol, or at least the tail of it, she thought. It looked forked like the tongue of a snake or maybe pointed like the tail of a dragon._

_It nagged at her – not knowing what the tattoo was. She wanted to position herself to see it better, but the elder man seemed to be wrapping up their meeting._

"_Okay, my little-" he started, but a jumble of sounds came out of his mouth that Max didn't understand, and neither did Child Max, judging by the look on the girl's face. _

_For the first time in the regression, Child Max spoke. Her lips twitched, trying to figure out how to say the word. "Ma… Mar… Max…"_

"_Perfect. Just our little secret, okay Max?"_

_Adult Max's eyes widened. 'He named me?'_

* * *

With a jolt, Alec woke from the hypnotic regression squeezing Max's hand harder than he thought. Her eyes snapped open, but she remained horizontal for a moment, reorienting herself.

Sitting back in his seat, Lydecker's face relaxed from the worried look it had been holding.

Max slowly sat up, her mind abuzz with ideas about all she'd just discovered in the hypnosis. She looked to Alec. He also seemed mentally distant, trying to work out the scenes he'd just replayed – _or foreshadowed?_ he wondered.

Lydecker spied them both with a stare. To Alec, he raised a brow. Alec shook his head and looked down to Max's hand in his. It was comforting that they had ended up holding hands. Blushing from his 'memory,' Alec looked to Max's face. "You okay?"

"Mmm-hmm. You?"

"Ship shape."

"Good," Lydecker interrupted, drawing their attention. "Find out anything useful?"

When Max didn't respond right away, Alec cleared his throat. "Sandeman was grooming me for something. I'm not sure what, but it seems related to what's happened with Max." He looked to her. "There was poetry I didn't know I knew; there were books with symbols in his office, but he was destroying them…"

His description stoked her memory, as if embers from a fire bursting up to flare to life. "I saw some science books – biology and genetics. I wasn't alone long enough to read any of them. I met with him, but I couldn't see him. Me – the younger version of me – could see him, but I still don't remember his face."

He hadn't thought about it much before, but now that max had posed the question, Alec thought about Sandeman's face. _Not a haggard-looking dude, _he thought. He looked over to Max, about to explain how Sandeman appeared to him, when the doors burst open to reveal a frantic-looking Dix.

"Sorry, guys. I need you at Net Com."

* * *

At Dix's station, he sat at his desk and spun on his chair to face his monitors as the two X5s stood behind him patiently.

"Since the submergence, there's been some activity for which high-level clearances are needed to even view the encoded information."

"Which you hacked," Max interrupted.

Dix looked over his shoulder. "Of course," he said, smiling confidently. He turned back to the monitor and began typing a sequence of algorithms.

_Those look extra-familiar,_ Max thought, tapping them on her arm. Something was bouncing around just past her consciousness, but whatever Dix was about to show them took the front seat of this vehicle.

"You both know this man," Dix started, bringing up the image of the saggy-faced man. Max unconsciously made a sour face, a visceral reaction Alec didn't miss. "Fink. He's working on a project for White. Seems he was recruited a couple years back."

Dix brought up another screen showing a still photography from a security camera off the western coast of Africa. In it, two men – White and Fink – surrounded by bodyguards, stepped off a vessel and onto dry land. "South Africans kept an eye on them when they visited Mozambique. This is from earlier today."

As he flashed a few pictures in succession, Alec and Max both noticed the two men were not being apprehended by the locals. A knot formed in Max's stomach as she watched them move about freely.

"They got a free pass?" Max asked. "The South Africans let them?"

Dix nodded.

"Only two reasons I can think of that they'd do that," Alec said. "A lot of money, or because they were told to."

"Or because they have a common goal," Max said, clenching her jaw.

"My thoughts exactly," Dix said, raising a finger to gesture his agreement. "So I may have taken a sneak peek of their records from the last few months."

Looking to Alec, Max noticed the expression on his face morph into excited anticipation, like she'd heard about with rich kids at Christmas.

"You sly spy," Alec said, leaning down to see the new set of pictures and files Dix brought up on his second monitor.

Max froze at the pictures before them. Some of them had the two men she currently despised most in her life – White and Fink – but the other showed faces from her past. It was her unit. It was her unit, but as children. Childish, ghostly faces were twisted in pain and anger. Max saw a young Ben. _But how could that be? Ben's dead. _Then Tinga. _She's dead, too._ And then more pictures of other faces whose childlike appearance mirrored other X5s she knew. How could this be? If these pictures were taken no less than two months ago...

"Oh my god," Max said, the realization hitting her.

Alec stood up. "What?"

She started at the photos. "If you had a business and were compromised, what would you need to start over somewhere else?" She finally met Alec's stare, his eyes wide with the same realization.

Dix turned to face them.

"You're telling me Manticore has gone international?" Alec asked.

"Someone was sleeping with the enemy," Dix said.

Max shook her head, trying to get her thoughts in order. "Wait – that's Tinga and Brin and Zack," she started, pointing, "But what would White and Fink want with them? They're just like us, right?"

Dix chewed the inside of his lip. "Don't know yet. Could be the South Africans' version-"

"No, they have the Reds, and those guys are different. With the ages of these kids-"

Alec interrupted. "It's the same tech. They had a failsafe. If anything happened at one facility, it would be destroyed and started over elsewhere."

Renfro's words echoed in Max's mind.

_You are nothing but meat to me._

* * *

1 Robert Herrick, _To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time._

2 Robert Frost, _Fire and Ice_

3 Gerard Manley Hopkins, _God's Grandeur_

4 Robert Browning, _Andrea del Sarto_

5 Christina Rossetti, _Goblin Market_

6 William Butler Yeats, _The Second Coming_


	21. Day 6 Above (Pt 3): Ripples

Renfro's words rippled through the past few days' events as more speculation crossed Max's mind. Is this what Renfro meant by 'starting over'? Or is whatever White and Fink are doing part of the 'other operations' to which Renfro had hinted? DNA sequencing, copying Manticore's program… it left her with a bitter taste which promised to be packed with even more salt. What the hell is going on? Were the X7s she'd seen before her capture moved prior to the Manticore inferno and now White and Fink were experimenting on or killing them? Did White and the breeding cult's transgenic problem extend beyond Manticore?

Max had to admit that the idea of there being more of her kind gave her some comfort, but whatever amount she could glean was undermined by the idea that they, too, would be hunted for the rest of their lives, and some of them, killed before they could put up a defense. Had Max unknowingly been the catalyst for the whole confrontation?

Max lowered herself into a chair and stared into the distance, trying desperately to see into the future. Dix and Alec continued the conversation.

"Unbelievable," Alec said, shocked. He considered the big picture a moment. "Well, I guess it's not that unbelievable. We are talking about Manticore."

Dix closed the photos of the kids and pulled up another file. "Sorry, there's one more thing." As he opened up a map and electronic copies of some classified documents, Dix continued. "White left Fink somewhere in Africa while he hopped a boat to Athens."

"Greece? What for?" Alec stood behind Dix and folded his arms.

He typed a few keys and brought up a screen showing the faculty roster at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. "I think to talk to Dr. Adair, the Head of the School of Philosophy, where all their language studies are."

"Must need help with the runes?" Alec surmised.

"I don't know," Dix said. "Not yet. Maybe I can get you a couple plane tickets to go visit the Professor and see why she had the honor of White's presence."

Finally, Max stood up, looking a bit depressed.

"Yeah, let's look into that," Alec said.

A natural lull occurred in the conversation and Alec assumed that was all the info Dix had to report for now. Turning to face Max, he raised his hands and lightly grasped her arms. "Don't worry. We'll figure it out."

She looked to his sincere eyes imploringly.

"Before you turn into an Etch-A-Sketch," he added.

"A 'what-a-what'?"

"An Etch-A-Sketch," he repeated simply, as if she should already know what it was and perhaps had merely misheard him.

She kept her puzzled look.

Conceding, Alec sighed. "All right, 'The Matrix.'"

"The what?" she repeated, looking to Dix for help. Dix shrugged.

Alec stepped back to see if she was joking, but she wasn't. "Seriously, Max. Watch a movie," he said, throwing an arm around her and guiding her back toward his office.

* * *

"So did you have compartment numbers this time?" Alec asked as they situated themselves in his office, the door closed to give them the very little privacy any Command office could offer.

Max shook her head. "These memories were like dreams where you suddenly find yourself in a different setting, and it all makes perfect sense even though you have no idea how you got there."

"Mine were like that, too," he divulged.

Max thought back to her memories. What the hell did it all mean, and why did those memories resurface? Were there more?

Like the first one, for example. It hadn't been blocked like the Sandeman stuff. In fact, she didn't know why she remembered that stuff at Logan's. Remembering it now, though, renewed her agitation. "You know those algorithms Dix used to hack those sites?"

"Yeah. We all do. You should, too. I mean, they were drilled into us when we were five, six, seven…" He watched her face for any clues as to where this line of questioning was leading.

Max bit her lip. She wasn't ready to out the guy just yet. Hell, she wasn't really even ready to entertain the idea that he'd lied to her. "Did you ever show that to anyone?"

He considered it. "Just my unit."

"Never an Ordi-" Max cut herself off. Since when did she use that word? "Never outside of Manticore?"

Eying her suspiciously, Alec probed. "Why, what do you remember?"

Max shook her head, dismissing the question. Logan was smart enough to figure that stuff out on his own, right? "I don't know," she answered vaguely.

She remembered the fight leaning up to the algorithm discussion and how that woman looked, writhing underneath her man. Max blushed, wondering if that's one of the things Alec had in mind when he'd promised her 'days.'

Rapt by the look in her eyes, and partially turned on by it, Alec revisited his kinky little scene with Max. How she'd been pregnant and he'd been filled with pride and unadulterated desire. He flashed to the huge columns, the sand, her robes, all in that temple-like place. In that very Greek-like temple… Then remembered Dix found White in Greece.

_Shit._

Was that a future 'memory'? Again, he found himself kind of happy thinking it may come to pass, and then panicked that it may come to pass. He looked to Max, his smile growing as her cheeks colored. Did she experience the same memory?

"Did you have any memories of being underground somewhere?" he asked. "Maybe with some sand, or…?"

Breaking out of her reverie, Max searched her memory. "No. I think I was with Lydecker in the basements. He was going to administer the protocol."

Alec nodded. She didn't share the sex memory, but he remembered accessing her with his mind, seeing her about to forget everything.

"He called me Tutu," Max said. "Does that make sense to you?"

She smiled as if her heart was missing something and he couldn't help but chuckle. "Tutu? Like a ballerina's costume?" As soon as he said it, the image of Max in a tutu sprung into his mind, but contrary to the traditional costume, Max as a ballerina wore boots and leather gloves. His chuckle quickly became a hearty belly laugh, and he doubled over.

His hearty belly laugh infected her and the corners of her mouth tilted up, then she smiled wide, and eventually joined him in full-throated laughter. "What's so funny?" she asked between breaths.

"You in a tutu," he answered, smiling wide, eyes twinkling with joyful mischief.

As their laughter died down, he took on an heir of seriousness. He reached for her hand and pulled her by the fingers toward him. He backed up until the backs of his legs met resistance with his couch, and as if muscle memory from his regression to the Greek-like temple, fell back, seated, and pulled Max until she straddled him.

Her lids fell halfway as her face neared his and his palms posted at her hips, his fingers wrapping around her waist. His confidence bordered on possessive, and for the first time in her genetically-engineered life, she liked the idea of belonging.

Scraping her nails up his scalp, she pulled his head toward hers and kissed him lightly. He kissed her with such reverence – as if he could worship every part of her with every part of him and still not have enough words to express his amazement at how far they'd come in so little time, and how much it truly meant to him.

Max rocked forward, her knees further apart on the couch cushions as he pulled her closer. She mewled into his mouth when his tongue slipped past her lips, and she tilted her head to deepen their kiss.

She could feel her own heart beating loudly in her chest, anticipating the gentle touch of his hands, and then it was stomping up and down her body as she imagined herself and Alec in the positions she'd seen the ecstatic couple in their apartment.

They came apart, Alec, breathless with desire.

_Note to self: find condoms,_ he thought, sweeping a hand to her neck and pulling her against him.

_Oh my god, he's growling,_ she thought. Some animalistic part of her roared to have had such an effect on him.

As per (what was becoming) usual, a knock came at Alec's door, breaking them apart. This time, it was Mole, sticking his big green face in the crack of the door."Alec," he called out, pointedly not looking in their direction. "Lydecker's asking for you. Told him you'd be out in a minute. You know, when you're done feelin' up your woman and getting your rocks off."

His face disappeared from the space, and he didn't bother shutting the door.

Max turned back from the door and let her hands fall down his chest. She arched a brow at Alec, whose face had colored from Mole's barb."Your woman, huh?"

Alec, surprised by the idea, stuttered, unsure what to say. "I, uh, I didn't say-"

Leaning forward, the flirty X5 interrupted him with a kiss. She leaned back, smiling, her lips, kiss-swollen.

"You know," he started, shifting under her. "One of these times, it's not gonna matter who busts in, they'll be getting' a show." He gave her a playfully sincere smile and the room grew quiet again.

Inching backward off his lap, Max got to her feet. "Looks like I'm needed in TC for a bit. We end up going to Greece, I'll be even longer away from Seattle, so I'm hittin' up OC to talk and grab some clothes."

Alec stood, too. "You gonna talk about me?"

_If he had a tail, he'd be wagging it right now,_ Max thought. All she gave him in response was a guilty smile. "I need to get my clothes, too."

"No clothes is fine with me," he said, his eyes dancing down her body and then back up again. He smiled appreciatively.

Max looked away coyly and as her smile fell, he knew what she was going to say next.

"I gotta stop by Logan's, too."

_Yep, I was right._ Alec considered asking if she wanted him to go with her, but he knew she didn't need a babysitter; plus, he wasn't sure with what was happening with Max how Logan would react to him being there, or whether or not Alec would be intimidating or be able to restrain himself from touching Max, the effect of which would be rubbing Logan's face in it. Instead, he said, "I have a quick errand to run with Deck, and then I'll be here, waiting for you with bated breath."

Max, relieved at Alec's response, stepped closer to him. "As long as that's all that's 'bated'," she said, rubbing her palms up his chest.

A short bout of throaty laughter erupted from him. "I love this Max," he said. She was unencumbered, flirty, fun, unashamed. _Holy shit, I just said I love her,_ he realized.

As he panicked she'd get scared and close herself off from him because he'd said a word that could be too soon to say, she laughed, calming his nerves. She lifted her small frame onto her tiptoes and kissed him again.

They parted, Alec taking a deep breath as Max ran her hands down his chest, pausing at his heart. He brought one hand up to hold hers at his heart while the other circled around her to hold her closer. "A guy could get used to that."

She smiled and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. "See you soon."

As she backed out of his embrace, he let her slide out of his arms and held on to her hand until it slipped out of his, and she left his office.

Smiling like a dope, he took another deep breath. _Oh, Jesus, I'm in trouble,_ he thought, idly walking around his desk.

* * *

When Max arrived at the apartment she shared with Original Cindy, she found it empty of her friend. It was the middle of the day, she reasoned, so she could be at work.

She sat on their ratty couch, remembering the first night after Cindy had moved in, taking Kendra's place. They'd stayed up some of the night talking – Max about the guy Cindy had seen with her (he was a product of her heat who had attempted to hang onto her), and Cindy, about her crush, Lena, whom had broken her heart by cheating on her.

How things had changed, Max realized. Original Cindy had stood up for herself and dumped Lena, even though she had been so in love with her, and like the old adage, time had healed her wounds.

But no matter how much time passed, there were many wounds from which Max felt she'd never heal: her deceased siblings, the regimen and abuse at Manticore, her guilt for what happened with Logan.

Max nodded, reaffirming that those things were the reasons she fought and had to keep fighting – to carve 'normal' into her life, whatever 'normal' meant to her – because no one else could give her that except herself.

Max walked to her room to begin packing some clothes. She wasn't sure how long she'd need to spend away, but it seemed like things were heating up with her runes, Sandeman, and (she blushed) Alec. She ended up packing in a manner Alec sometimes referred to as 'shotgunning it,' where a little bit of everything will cover most bases. In packing, in modern medicine such as broad spectrum antibiotics, or in something so simple to any Manticorean as infiltration techniques, shotgunning it was important.

It was true that she wanted to talk to her best friend about everything that had been revealed and discovered over the past few days, and everything that had been developing with Alec, and the dangerous possibilities of what all of her runes meant and the concept of going to Greece, but on some subconscious level, she knew that the more OC knew about out all of it, the more danger she might be in. No one was safe from White, or the South Africans – just as OC had experienced herself – and Max was in no hurry to invite the threat.

She huffed, resigned to leaving a vague note to the effect of 'Everything's fine. Sorry I missed you. I'll hit you back first chance I get.'

Taking one last look around the apartment before a possibly extended time away, Max shut the door, slung her pack over her shoulder, pulled her cap over her forehead, and made her way through the damp streets toward Logan's.

* * *

Alec stuffed his hands in his pockets as he led Lydecker through the industrial zone in Sector 9. A light rain had already begun, and he cursed losing his leather jacket, because that left him with a thin raincoat which did little to protect him from the cold. He wished he had kept on the sweatshirt Lydecker had given him.

"So this contact-"

Alec interrupted. "Tony Miller."

"Tony Miller… he's some kind of forgery artist?"

Alec nodded, turning the corner and continuing into the alleyway. The rain had started to soak his hair. "Yeah. Used him a couple of times a few years back when I was out on solos and needed to get out of state or country."

Lydecker paused mid-step. "You used this guy while you were still with Manticore?"

Alec nodded again and pushed forward, urging the older man to continue following him. "I've been told I'm good with people."

Lydecker felt a strange sense of dichotomy: pride that 494 had worked some angle outside of Manticore, and a sort of betrayal that Alec got away with it right under his nose. "You all have genius level quotas," he said, as if in defense for how he'd never know about Alec's connections.

_Genius on the street and a freak in the sheets,_ Alec thought, chuckling. He led Lydecker around a few fire escapes until they came across a darkened brick wall with a small window near the second story fire escape. He climbed up half a flight and knocked on the glass. "Manticore Delivery," Alec said in a singsong fashion.

A face appeared in the window and Alec turned back to Lydecker to let the face see his barcode. The man opened the window.

"Hey Tony," Alec said, shaking the man's hand.

The man had a similar complexion to Max's, dark hair, and light blue eyes.

"Hey man," Tony responded.

"Alec," he said, knowing Tony knew he didn't have a name last time they'd met up – just a designation. "Brought a friend," he offered.

"You trust him?" Tony asked, flipping the latch on the window.

Alec looked to Lydecker and back to Tony. "You even have to ask?"

Tony couldn't see past Alec through the fog of the glass, but he let Alec in, and Lydecker climbed in behind him.

By the looks of it, Tony lived and worked out of his studio apartment. Why anyone wanted to live in the industrial part of this sector was beyond Lydecker. Maybe the cops here required less bribe/rent than they charged in the other, more inhabitable parts of the gray city.

Tony walked toward his desk without a backward glance. "Think I still have your ugly mug somewhere," he trailed, rifling through some papers.

"Ugly!?" Alec said, smirking and looking around the room. Something was off. The bedspread was rumpled and the room smelled vaguely musky. "Now that hurts." Using his ocular enhancement, Alec checked the doorframe, the window at the other corner, and the interior stairs to the loft Tony had built.

Lydecker let his eyes wander. The forger's apartment was littered with pieces of art – some hung double stacked along the walls, some on display on shelves around the room. It called out to him somehow. There were several paintings, most likely a part of a series judging by the color theme and general motifs. Something about them was violent, but controlled.

Tony appeared to have found the item for which he had been looking, just as the sound of a toilet flushing and a faucet running interrupted the room's quiet ambience.

"Interesting paintings," Lydecker said. "May I ask who's the artist?"

Tony turned back to them. "I am."

The bathroom door opened and a young woman dressed in Tony's raglan tee sauntered into the room, disheveled and barefoot. She had fair skin, slightly ashen, bright blonde hair, and legs for days, Alec noticed, thinking about Max's legs and turning back to see Tony. Something about the woman seemed very familiar.

The young woman looked at the three men and hurried to Tony's side.

Alec realized why it smelled musky, why the bedspread was rumpled, why the woman was barely dressed. One whiff of her scent confirmed the suspicions he'd developed in the past two minutes.

Lydecker eyed Tony warily, cataloguing his blue eyes, dark hair, and sort of European physique. His eyes widened as he seemed to add up the pieces of some puzzle, about which Alec wasn't sure. "I'll wait for you outside," Lydecker said.

* * *

Max knocked three times, taking a deep breath and preparing for what was about to come. She heard a couple of footfalls followed by the chain being removed. As the door swung open, she saw Logan, in a state of supreme tiredness, looking at her too-reverently than that for which the situation called.

"Hey," she said tensely. She breezed past him, still habitually a safe distance away from him, as her coat dripped rainwater on his floor.

He hadn't expected her impatience. He also hadn't expected her duffle and for her to still be wearing her cap indoors. It hid her eyes, and that disturbed him. It meant she didn't want him to see her micro expressions. He frowned. "Hey," he said dejectedly. "Going somewhere?"

Max lifted the duffle from her shoulder and set it on the kitchen floor. "Can't stay in the city – too dangerous. Gonna hole up in TC for a bit."

_With Alec? _he wondered. "Oh."

Max paced into the living room, putting the coffee table between them unconsciously. "So, you have some information for me?" She tried not to sound so detached, but it was difficult, given the look he was using to display the forever-stare, the intense look she used to return prior to the virus.

"Right," he said after a long pause. He led the way to his office and sat in his executive chair. Max waited in the door jamb, crossing her arms and relaxing one leg.

Logan turned, surprised to see her out of arm's reach. Before the bunker, she had been a little more comfortable with him – enough not to almost be in a different room. He took a cautious breath and began. "The rune, I think, may be from a dead language originally transcribed from a spoken language, which might be why there are so few pieces of concrete evidence to explain what it means. Most of the translations I've seen point toward the idea or overarching concept of 'the one.' Alec thinks you're 'the one,' something Fink said to him, I guess."

Though Max remembered that Dix had said as much, hearing her former romantic interest say that another man thought she was 'the one' played on her heart. Was she somebody's 'one'? "I have a lot more runes now, and Dix and the team in TC are closing in on interpretations." Her eyes seemed to be focused past him somewhere as she explained their progress.

"Wait, you have more?" he asked, rising to his feet. "How many more, and where?" He moved like he was about to reach out to her, but affected a mask of scientific research to help it seem less intimate than he wished. If he tried to make it seem like a methodical collection of evidence rather than a romantic caress, perhaps it'd be less awkward for her.

Though covered almost entirely head-to-toe, Max paled under Logan's questioning stare. It was as if he expected her to just strip and show him all the new runes – and not in a creepy ex-boyfriend-who-won't-let-go kind of way, but more in a scientist-and-research-study kind of way. And that made her very uncomfortable. She didn't want to be someone's study. She looked away.

"I don't really have time to show you. Maybe I can get Dix to send them to you or something." She was eager, now, to change the subject, if for no other reason than to make him stop looking at her like that – like she was a puppy with an unknown disease.

Logan backed off. What the hell was going on with her? How had everything changed so quickly? Was it about the transference when two people go through a harrowing experience, tying them together? Was it Alec? Were they one another's survivor bond?

"Have you done much research on Manticore since it burned down?" Max asked, fidgeting with her gloves.

With slumped shoulders, Logan looked back toward his computer to cover up the hurt which would otherwise have been evident on his face. Would she only ever come to him for information now? Use his hacker skills? Was it the end of dinners during brownouts and quasi-romanticism?

And suddenly, he knew what had been his downfall. The quasi-romanticism he exhibited lacked the passion of action. Was he too late?

"Not really, why?"

Max finally took off her cap and hooked her thumb at the closure, the act of which made Logan relax a little. Maybe he wasn't too late.

"We found evidence that Manticore, or a Manticore-like operation, is currently being run abroad. I was hoping you could reach out your feelers and see what you can find? Both White and Fink have been spotted in Egypt and Greece… we might have a contact there to help with the rune translations."

"You're going to Greece?"

Max let the question hang in the air a moment, because to her, it sounded like he'd added '_with Alec?' _to the end of that question, and she just wasn't sure with the state of their friendship how much she could tell him without endangering his life. "I'm not sure. Look, Logan, I don't want you to get hurt in all this."

_Another deep breath_, she noticed.

"Do you have a few more minutes to talk? You know," he paused, reaching out for her hand. "About the cure?"

Max shied away from his touch, the habit and the guilt both taking over. She felt sorry to hurt him, but things had changed so much in the past two weeks. It was like a snowball that started out small, but as it kept rolling, it collected more snow, more surface area, and grew exponentially, until it was one big, icy sphere of destruction, and she didn't want it rolling over him.

Logan huffed. "Max," he said, and she could hear the pleading tone in his voice. She couldn't tear her eyes from the broken man in front of her.

"Logan," she responded, sounding like the warning she meant it to be. Their friendship was at its most fragile right now, and their actions and inactions would determine its course.

"What's going on?" he asked lightly. "Is it Alec?"

Her coffee-colored eyes rimmed with tears as she tried to find a way to explain without hurting him. She had been carefully trying to keep from revealing any personal details, but again felt drawn into the guilt which seemed to surround her and Logan. He had sacrificed so much for her over the past two years, albeit without her consent, and she wondered how long she would need to indulge this guilt.

She also thought about the amazing things happening with Alec. She had been doing her best not to compare Logan and Alec up to this point, but it seemed like everything she said, saw and did all called attention to their differences.

Logan was brilliant behind the keyboard and monitor, and Alec was brilliant running ops right by her side. Logan sometimes shamed her for using her particular enhancements, whereas Alec championed their use as tools of their trade. Logan tried to help her deny Manticore Max, while Alec helped her gain the freedom which came with accepting the past, becoming accountable for it, and moving on. Alec appreciated her for all of her jagged facets – the soldier, the confidant, the friend, the woman.

And Max wanted to be like Alec; she wanted to be a leader, someone who wasn't afraid of charging in not knowing the whole scenario, someone who fought for others as if they were fighting for themselves. If she was supposed to be this big hero, this 'one' to which all these prophesies alluded, then she needed to start taking responsibility for her actions. "Yes," she finally said.

Logan looked down, unable to meet her gaze. It hurt him to the core to think that he found the cure just barely too late. "Isn't it sort of out of the blue?" Logan asked. "I mean, up until a few weeks ago, you couldn't stand the guy!"

Thinking about the two sessions of regression, Max folded her arms again in some attempt to keep her cards held close to her chest. "This thing with Alec – it's new, and it's exciting –" she paused, looking both concerned and amorous. "And there isn't much I could say to express the beauty I feel," she paused again, taking a deep breath before continuing, "When I'm with him. And we share parts of our past, and what's going on now with the runes and Sandeman and Fink and White, it connects us even more."

In an attempt to understand, Logan probed further. "What do you mean, connects you even more? More than being brought up at Manticore?"

She could feel on an emotional level that he was grasping, and out of frustration, decided that he was at least owed the truth. Or some of the truth. "He told me he thinks I'm this mythological 'one' because after I transfused him, Fink put him through some of the tests the breeding cult began with me. He should have died, but with my blood in him, he survived."

Suddenly very rapt with her new information, Logan closed his mouth and listened, perhaps waiting for the precise moment where Max decided to stop loving him and start allowing romantic thoughts of Alec to perverse her mind.

"And it was a little more than being conditioned by Manticore. We found out recently that we were both attending secret meetings with Sandeman." Max let her arms fall from their closed-off position, feeling a sense of comfort thinking of Sandeman and Alec. "Did you know Sandeman named me?" She let the question fill the room, its rhetoric dusting everything with a childlike wonder.

Watching the way her body relaxed talking about this new information made Logan jealous. He couldn't remember a time he'd seen her peaceful like that, and he'd had no direct influence on it.

Max twitched out of the feeling and continued. "And now, with everything we've been remembering, it seems like he and I, well, we're in this together. And everything else suggests we are in it together."

Taking a hesitant step forward, Logan cleared his throat. "Are you in love with him?"

A grunt escaped her lips. _Is he even listening to anything I'm saying?_ He was so focused on Alec that he was losing the bigger picture. "Regardless of any of my romantic feelings for Alec, he and I are tied to this prophesy. He's a part of it."

Logan bit his tongue to keep from confirming outright that she had feelings for the roguish X5. "But the prophesy or whatever, there's no mention of 'The Second One' or 'The Other One,' so does Alec factor into it? Did he get the runes, too?"

Her first reaction was full of anger and she nearly growled at him from the perpetual frustration. "No, Logan, you're not listening to me. I am responsible for what's coming, and Alec – it's like he was supposed to help protect me or something, and I-"

"But you have a whole team of people who're trying to protect you, Max," Logan argued. "Including me." Logan backed up, upset that she wasn't acknowledging anyone else for their efforts.

Max's face twisted in concern. She recognized the desperation in his voice.

"And now, what? You're in love with him? Suddenly?"

Max crossed her arms. "That's none of your business."


	22. Day Six Above (Pt 4): Invisible Ties

"O-kay," Tony said, seeing Lydecker waiting quasi-patiently, hands in his pockets with his back to the three people still left in the studio.

"What's up with your friend?" the blonde woman asked.

Again, Alec eyed her with some suspicion. Had she already talked to Tony about their child? And why did she look so familiar? "You must be Tony's lady," he said, extending his hand.

"Oh, sorry. Alec, this is my girlfriend, Liv. Liv, Alec."

Liv shook Alec's hand, her eyes squinting slightly.

"She's Manticore, too," Tony said.

And suddenly, he knew exactly where he'd seen her. In Psy-Ops. Tearing apart his mind. Without reservation.

She must have seen the change in his eyes, because she looked away. "I'm sorry," she said in a whisper. She looked over to Tony, scared of what Alec might say. She wished Tony hadn't explained that last part.

Alec picked up on her micro expression. She wasn't proud of her role in the Psy-Ops division. "It's nice to meet you, Liv," he said, shaking her hand gently. "Don't worry about it," he added.

They held one another's stare a moment before Alec let go. He looked out toward Lydecker. Maybe he had recognized Liv and hadn't wanted to invite that drama.

Tony, on the other hand, looked confused. "You two know each other?"

Alec felt the emotions long-gone: fear of what would happen to his sense of self when Psy-Ops completed their task – whether or not he'd have any idea who he was once he was dispatched, anxiety as he remembered the needles, the lasers, the psychological, mental anguish, and the physical torture. He tried to push those memories away, and when that didn't work, he compartmentalized them. It wasn't her fault they'd put him through all of that. "We met once or twice at Manticore. Lunch room or something." He smiled under a veil of ease, a false front Liv saw, but which Tony did not.

In that moment, her big blue eyes showed gratitude.

Relaxed a little, Tony chuckled. That Manticore would have a lunch room like a school would have tickled him. "So… you need a passport? Fake ID? What?"

"Two passports, actually. One for me and," he hesitated a moment, looking to Liv and back. "One for Max."

Tony sat at his desk and rifled through some photos. "Got a picture of this 'Max'?" he asked.

Alec pulled his phone from his pocket, thinking about the runes all over Max's skin. "Yeah, I think I have a clear shot of her face."

"Max?" Liv asked.

As if he'd been caught red-handed, Alec looked up guiltily.

"452?" she continued.

It felt like she was an old school friend who was pleasantly surprised to learn two of her former classmates had hooked up. "Yeah," he answered, scrolling through the photos. Max's foot, Max's leg, Max's hip, Max's stomach… The images made his pulse race a little as he remembered their experience in his now old apartment. Finally, he found a suitable photo of her face and sent the picture via text message to Tony's newest burner phone. "Might have to work some magic on her neck."

"Why?" Tony asked, plugging his phone into his computer. He moved the image from the phone to his desktop and opened it. He leaned forward. "What are those? Tattoos?"

Alec sighed. "It's a long story."

Liv leaned over Tony's shoulder. Her eyes widened and she turned to stare at Alec.

"You know what those are." Alec stepped forward, threateningly. "Why do you know what those are?"

Slightly panicked, Liv took a step back, intuitively trying to keep herself from getting in his way, figuratively or literally. "I can't read them," she offered.

Alerted to what was happening behind him, Tony stood and turned to face the transgenics.

Alec attempted to calm himself. If he couldn't keep his cool, he wouldn't be able to get any information. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you – it's just… we've been working on this and our best lead is a professor at a university in Greece, which is where we need to go." Alec took a breath, and Liv followed suit.

"What do you know about the markings?" Tony asked, reaching for Liv's shoulder.

"It's true, then," Liv said, still in disbelief. "What they said about her."

"What did they say? Who are 'they'?"

"The scientists," she answered simply. "Used to talk about how they needed to find 'the one.' Renfro's orders. The one who'd withstand the tests was supposed to develop the marks, and none of you ever did."

How a whole team in Psy-Ops could know about Max's top secret prophesy was beyond Alec. There had to be more to it. Renfro's orders, tests, Fink and White, the cult… It all didn't add up. He let out a frustrated sigh. "You were never told why or informed of any of the details? You didn't ever overhear anything? Ask anything?"

"Just what I told you," Liv confirmed, looking away. "I've seen a lot, but almost nothing regarding 452. There used to be rumors of a girl. But, you remember what happened to the soldiers who fell out of line, who got too inquisitive."

Alec stared into the same distance. "Yeah, I do. It was not tolerated."

"So…" Tony began, breaking the couple-second silence. "You need to go to Greece."

Alec cleared his throat and met the dark-haired man's eyes. "Yeah. Possibly Africa – Mozambique, Egypt. Maybe some credentials for an Athens University. Not exactly sure what we'll need."

Tony's eyes lit up. "Alright – a full package. I love a challenge." He looked over to Liv as if she was also a challenge he loved.

"Awesome." Alec reached out to shake his hand, happy his contact would come through.

"Gonna take me a couple days. I'll call you when they're ready. Can you get me Max's stats?"

"'Course. Thanks, man." He looked over to Liv. "And uh, take care of her. She's gonna need your help."

Liv nearly turned pink with embarrassment and she and Tony watched as Alec climbed out the window.

* * *

Lowering himself into the stench-filled sewer, Alec landed softly and with minimal splash. Lydecker was already waiting for him, himself, a worse victim of the sewer's grime.

"So let me ask you something," Alec began, the curious parts of his DNA scratching up through his mind, begging for satisfaction. "You worked with Liv before, right?"

They began walking, puddles of murky waters upset by their boots as they trudged forward. Lydecker let his hands ball into his jacket pockets.

"Is that her name?" he asked. Lydecker's brows twitched as he walked, his face otherwise statuesque.

"No, I'm not buying it. How do you know her? Psy-Ops?"

Nonchalantly, Lydecker answered. "I don't know her."

Alec paused, twisting his torso toward Lydecker. "Then what was that back there?"

"Nothing." Lydecker continued walking.

"Oh, I see. It wasn't her you knew; it was him. Tony."

Lydecker stopped walking and turned to face Alec, his own face completely stoic. He couldn't speak.

"But he's not Manticore, so how do you know him?"

"The whole batch of you are too curious," he grumbled, turning to keep walking. When Alec didn't follow, he stopped again and turned back to him. "He's my son."

* * *

Max didn't mind the rain. After everything she'd just talked about with Logan, and that conversation had ended in her losing patience and angrily affirming they'd talk again later, the rain had a cooling, calming effect on her. So what it made her clothes and hair wet? The decompression was worth it.

She rounded the corner, heading just west of the Sector 3 checkpoint. _Not many people out and about when it's raining cats and dogs,_ she thought with a mental giggle. _Cats. I wonder how Joshua and Lucy are doing._

Dead ahead, she saw a small congregation of police gathered at the checkpoint. She could either chance them not knowing her face and use her Jam Pony sector pass, or she could cut through the alleyway and dip into the sewers. Quickly, she decided to avoid police.

It was dark in the alley, most likely due to the sector brownout, and as the rain tick-ticked on her duffle, jacket, and hat, she hastened her speed. Something about this didn't feel right.

Approaching the alley's exit, she noticed a couple of guys in hooded raincoats huddling in a circle. Too late to turn back and try her luck with the police, she continued forward, keeping her head down.

But one of them called out to her. "Hey, baby, lookin' for a good time?"

Keeping her stare straightforward, she ignored them and quickened her pace even more.

"Aw, come on, smile for me, girl," another called.

_Smile for me,_ she repeated mentally. _What a dumbshit._ She continued walking until one of them stepped in her path and blocked her. She looked up to meet dull, brown eyes on a young man's face.

"Hey, baby, what's your name?" he asked, reaching out to try to lift her chin up to see her face.

Max batted his hand away. "None of your damn business," she bit back. "Get out of my way."

He saw her face, finally. Excited by her fighting spirit, the guy smiled, revealing a dangerously creepy grin. "I think we got a fighter," he informed the others, two of which grabbed Max's arms in an attempt to immobilize her. A third guy pulled her cap off.

"So pretty," the smiling creep said. "Should be fun."

Max feigned weak a moment, trying to assess her attackers and their weaknesses. One in front, two holding her arms, one who had pulled off her hat, and there were at least three others. _Seven._ She didn't like her odds.

The ringleader of the group got closer and pulled the zipper of her raincoat down, revealing the skin at her neck and collarbone. His face turned to disgust as he perused her columns of runes. His eyes narrowed with anger. "You're one of those freaks."

Max gritted her teeth, squinting at the man with malice. "I don't want to hurt you," she said calmly.

The man laughed, and without warning, punched her hard in the stomach.

* * *

Alec made it back to Command alone, after having said goodbye to Lydecker. The older man had said he'd see them in a couple weeks.

His explanation of his confession was vague. Perhaps Lydecker had meant to put Alec off of his deductive reasoning.

Tony's mother was Anastasia Antonopoulos, a beautiful Greek woman with which Lydecker had an illicit, strictly forbidden affair over the better part of two years, and then one day, she had just been gone.

Alec had probed further.

_Was she in the surrogate program?_

_No._

_Did Manticore have her killed?_

_I assumed so, but I never found a single trace of her._

_Did you know she was pregnant?_

_No._

_What would you have done if you did?_

Silence.

And finally, he'd asked the question that'd been burning in the back of his mind.

_Why didn't you tell him?_

More silence for the better part of a minute, until he pressed his lips together confidently. _He seems happy._

His response had given Alec some pause. What would any responsible parent do in that situation? Alec pictured himself in a parallel situation. Max was pregnant and maybe both their lives were in danger, and an enormous government top-secret entity had both the manpower and resources to eliminate them all. He gulped at the gravity of the situation. If Max left without a trace, would he assume she'd been killed?

Alec shook his head. _I'd need proof. Even if she wasn't pregnant._

But something about the way Lydecker had answered the question felt like a sacrifice he'd made to keep his son blissfully ignorant. 'Happy,' he'd said.

"He does seem happy," Alec agreed. "And Liv's pregnant, so I guess you're gonna be a grandpa." Alec chuckled, slapping Lydecker on the shoulder roughly. Lydecker did not reciprocate the joviality. Even his slightly bushy eyebrow hairs stayed still.

And then Lydecker had left with an easy, "Take care of yourself, kid, and I'll catch up with you in a couple weeks."

Alec passed NetComms with a nod to Dix.

"Seen Max?" Dix called out.

"No. She's not back yet?"

"Haven't seen her."

"Huh." Alec passed the threshold into his office and sat down at his desk. _Seen Max,_ he repeated in his mind, remembering his memory regression with Sandeman. _Wonder if I still can…_

He had no idea how Child Alec accessed Child Max, but it didn't seem chemical. "Worth a shot, right?" he asked himself aloud.

Systematically relaxing from his toes to his shoulders, Alec concentrated on the idea of Max: intense, chocolaty, fiery eyes – first angry, and then lustful – seeped into his mind. Slowly, her plump, soft lips came into view. Gradually, her naked body materialized.

He shook his head to will the image away. This was serious and he wouldn't get anywhere if he kept fantasizing.

"Where are you, Max?"

Like a masked iris expanding, an image of Max soaked through into his mind. Her cheekbone was split open and she looked like she might have a fat lip. Off in the distance, he saw a neon sign spark back on. He watched in angry horror as he saw the two guys holding her in place while a third punched her in the side.

Standing up, his anger overtook him as he nearly leapt out of his office and ran out of Command. His anger was so white hot that he lost his link. He understood in that millisecond that his overpowering desperation to find and possibly kill the men who had their hands on Max would prevent him from accessing that link again anytime soon.

_What did that sign say?_ He wracked his brain. _I've seen it before. Love. Cove. No, not that._

He pulled his hair in frustration. He'd walked that street before. It led to one of their sewer access points.

"Sewers," he said, running toward TC's west side tunnel entrance. He quickly lowered himself into the tunnel and moved on instinct toward the northern tunnels.

Finally, something looked familiar – as if he were retracing steps taken long ago. He hurried up the ladder and opened the manhole cover to see if he had any obstacles to avoid. Despite the rain, a couple people conducted their nightly business, and none paid attention to him as he climbed out and replaced the heavy cover.

Looking around for the neon sign he'd just seen relight when the power flickered back on, he turned in place. Finally, he heard the soft cries of Max's grunting. Blurring in her direction, Alec didn't even realized he had already balled both hands into white-knuckled fists. He registered the neon sign, Dove, paired with a broken light tube shaped like the bird of same name, but with Max in danger, it wasn't a conscious thought that he'd been close thinking 'Love' and 'Cove.'

Racing down the alley, he shouted, "Hey! Let her go!" Mere seconds passed before he ripped the guy that was holding Max's right side away from her by his right arm and handful of the guy's jacket. As he spun him around, Alec's fist connected with the guy's face in a loud crack, and while the goon was falling unconscious to the ground, Alec had already moved on to the two guys who had approached.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Max was already free from the man who'd been holding her left side, and was fighting both him and the creepy guy, a volley of punches and kicks landing their marks.

In his earnest to see if Max was okay, Alec had left himself vulnerable, and one of the two lackeys took advantage of it by punching him hard in the ribs. Alec doubled over and padded at his ribs with a couple of fingers. It was tender there and would bruise, maybe even to the bones. When he looked back to the guy, he'd readjusted his brass knuckles.

_Fuck. I didn't see that._

With a newfound burst of adrenaline – perhaps from his rank among all possible fighters – Alec bounced back, ignoring the pain in his ribs as he pummeled Brass Knuckles with blurring speed. The other guy hadn't stood a chance, and as his mouth sprung a bloody dribble, Alec let the guy crumble to the ground.

With Brass Knuckles' blood on his fists, Alec turned to face the next opponent. The newcomer wore a black puffy raincoat and, when he leered in Alec's direction, showed off two gold teeth.

"You next?" Alec asked with a sneer.

Puffy put up both fists and danced on the balls of his feet like a boxer.

"That's more like it," Alec said, trying to keep his muscles loose, when their natural tendency during a match was to tense up.

Puffy bobbed, even though Alec made no moves suggesting a punch, and circled the X5.

With all of his nerves and impulses on edge, Alec relaxed his shoulders, letting Puffy dance around him, keeping their eyes connected. He could see that his opponent was getting a little dizzy from the circling. One well-placed jab would knock this guy out.

"You've graduated to the next weight class," Puffy said.

Alec grinded his teeth, listening to Max's fight. He'd seen her twice in the background as he kept Puffy's stare. She'd been scraped up a little, but otherwise had been dealing with a couple of these punks pretty well on her own. He focused back on Puffy and saw the twitch of his shoulder as they continued in a counterclockwise circle.

With his fists floating as if preparing for a right jab, Alec bobbed out of Puffy's right hook, dropped his left shoulder and pushed up forcefully with his left fist in an unexpected uppercut. Puffy's teeth snapped in a bite as he sailed several feet backwards and fell onto his back, the force of which knocked the wind out of him. Alec knelt over him and waited to see if Puffy would open his eyes or not.

"He's unconscious!" Max shouted. "Let's go!"

Alec turned to see her, her cheeks rosy from the cold rain and air and the heat from fighting. She grabbed her duffle and pulled him up by the sleeve. There were only three guys on the ground – the two Alec had knocked unconscious, and the creepy guy Max had been fighting.

"Where are the others?" he asked, eager to bring his brand of justice to the other guys threatening Max.

"They ran," she explained, grasping his arm and pulling him toward the sewer tunnel. "Come on, let's go."

Alec looked around. The other four assailants had disappeared. _Cowards._

* * *

As they passed through NetComms, Alec called out, "Mole! Look alive!"

The lizard man's head popped up above one of the security monitors as Alec tossed the brass knuckles up to him.

"It's not even my birthday," Mole said, with an expression approaching a smile.

"You're welcome," Alec said.

Mole noticed Max's injuries. "Someone finally give you hell?"

Alec was about to speak up and demand the knuckles back, but Max blurted out, "Nope!" with a triumphant smile.

They made their way into Alec's office and closed the door. Max set her duffle down as Alec circled around his desk and pulled his first aid kid from one of his lower drawers.

Max eased off her torn shirt, leaving her in a tank top, and lowered herself onto the couch.

"Anything broken?" Alec sat next to her and opened the kit. He removed the alcohol prep pads and tore open a package.

"Doesn't feel like it," she responded, offering her face to him. She had a split on her cheek deep enough to have drawn blood. "You?"

He gently dabbed the cool, wet cloth on her laceration, staring intently at the cut.

Max watched how his brow turned in concern, and how his bottomless eyes conveyed his worry, and how his lips twitched as he concentrated on disinfecting her wound. She raised her hand, curled her fingers around his knuckles, and pulled his hand between them. For the moment, she drew his stare to hers, the tension from their injuries fading away. "Are you okay?"

"Sore ribs, but that's all," he said.

"Not broken?" Max lifted his shirt and pressed her fingers at his warm skin, letting her fingertips drag against the lines of his lean muscles.

Alec, transfixed by her tenderness, felt the room heat up again, nearly paralyzed by her touch.

Again, she pressed at his ribs in a slightly reddened area and peered up to him when he winced. "Sorry," she said, offering a slight smile.

Alec stilled, a serious look overtaking the pained one.

For the second time in his genetically enhanced life, he wanted to shout out that he was in love. Filled with the knowledge that he would do anything for her, that throughout his being he felt she'd do the same, and feeling so alive when they were together, burned through him like a thirsty wildfire through a dry field, consuming his breath and using it as more fuel to fan this encompassing flame. He opened his mouth to tell her, but he couldn't find the words.

What would happen when his brain fired the perfect words' synapses through his body, sculpting its concept in his mind before his tongue and mouth twitched to mold those words, and he breathed those conceptual rushes of air out, pairing it unconsciously with the vibrations of his vocal chords, and out came the song of his heart's desires? Would his throwing caution to the wind prove her response vicious like a pack of wild wolves devouring him, or maybe would she fold him into her like a love letter in its envelope, and carry him with her on the breeze like a sweet melody?

Max took a shallow breath, searching the abyss of his eyes for the meaning behind his passionate, reverent silence. His lips had parted and he seemed to be holding his breath, caught somewhere between thought and speech, and feeling like she couldn't let him suffocate, Max leaned forward, her stare falling to half-lidded, and pressed her lips to his.

Alec raised his open palm to caress her jaw and neck, and pulled back again, breaking their kiss. It was quiet again. "Max," he began, but both transgenics heard Joshua's voice and footsteps as he made his way through Command.

"Max in Alec's office?" they heard him ask.

It sounded as if Joshua was laboring with something he carried, lumbering in the hallway as he appeared silhouetted against Alec's obscured-glass door.

Max eased back off the couch, found her overshirt and pulled it back on just as Joshua knocked.

Alec cleared his throat, staring at Max with the weight of something important swimming in his eyes. Max blinked slowly at him, her feline femininity pouring through.

"Max 'n' Alec?"

Alec stood. "Come on in, Josh."

The door swung open gently and Joshua carried in a large, framed canvass. "Sorry. Max asked Joshua for Father."

She had almost forgotten, and suddenly having the painter before her filled her with a different kind of nervous excitement.

"Max okay?" he asked, finally getting a clear line of sight to her face.

She raised a hand absentmindedly to her cheek, eyes glued to the back of the painting. "I'm fine." She raised hopeful eyes to meet Joshua's. "Is… is that him?"

Satisfied that Max's injuries were only superficial, Joshua stood taller and smiled a row of pointed but otherwise straight teeth.

Max took a hesitant step toward him, anxious to see the face of the man who created her – who created all of them, whose plan it was for her to be this 'one.' She hoped seeing the portrait would jog more of her memories somehow, further, helping her to walk the labyrinth of this man's brilliant mind and uncover the maze, her path in it, and its overall purpose. She wondered if he would look like Joshua, Isaac, White, or Casey. She wondered if Joshua would paint him exactly as he remembered him.

She blinked and took a deep breath, steeling herself for what she'd see, and felt Alec's warm hand at her back.

Joshua turned the canvas around and watched Max's face for her reaction.

The man in the portrait stared back at her, his gray-blue eyes seeming to squeeze in approval, as if he was about to break into a smile or a hearty laugh. His overcast eyes seemed reminiscent of a time before the Pulse, before things would get difficult; but they also seemed a physical foreshadow of the complexities which would later obscure their existence. It was as if he could see into the future and found it rife with danger, and thought maybe he could use his life and energy and mind to help make it a better future. All of that in his eyes. Ambition, mischief, danger, wisdom, discipline.

His gray-blues cast out from under dark eyebrows and a high forehead, all topped off with a mop of dark hair which partially fell into his face.

Joshua had painted him wearing (presumably) a long-sleeve, baby blue button-up dress shirt with the top two buttons undone, and a deep indigo corduroy jacket, worn thin from the look of it.

His skin was pale, and logically, it made sense to Max; he was a scientist who spent a great deal of time inside. It gave her the almost comforting feeling of contrast. The concept that someone could represent opposite ends of the spectrum gave her hope for her own kind; they may have been manufactured to be cold assassins, soldiers without conscience, but there were so many transgenics who were so much more than that, who demonstrated compassion, nurturing behavior, protectiveness, brilliance, strength, integrity, dignity and love. Did Sandeman know what he had created?

A suggestion of a smile formed on her lips as she studied the gentle sweeps of Joshua's careful brushstrokes. The whisper thin stroke of the slightly browned peach at the corners of his eyes was a perfectly straight set of lines, tainted at the tip with a twinge of sienna for the depth of his soon-to-be-wrinkles. The faint lines at what would be his smile suggested a constantly closed mouth held in by lips pursed in a thin line, as if he spent more time solving puzzles than attempting to relax. The stubble which curved around his chin gave the impression that he had neither the energy nor the time it would take to shave as frequently as he'd need to. He was handsome.

Joshua had given much attention to this portrait. Sandeman was his father, his hero, and it was clear through his craft that he loved his father very much, that he did his very best to make his father proud.

Joshua finally broke the silence. "Max like?"

Max tore her eyes from the painting and looked up to Joshua. "It's perfect, Big Fella."

Joshua stood taller at Max's approval. "You keep?"

The dark-haired X5 let the question fill the silence in the office. Her mind raced a mile a minute, trying to paste his face on the memories she'd just remembered; ran through her Manticore memories in search of him anywhere in the background.

Her eyes glassed over in hasty frustration that she may not ever actually remember anything about him unless under the influence of the protocol's drug.

Placing a warm hand at her shoulder, Alec swept his hand down her arm. He looked over her shoulder at the painting, trying to solve Max's same problem in his own mind.


End file.
